Have you seen the video floating on Facebook of the woman who finds her two toddler age children with an empty 5 pound bag of flour and a living room coated it white fine powder? The video is about 3 minutes long and you can hear the woman tour her living room saying, "Oh my gosh." over and over and over. Her mantra for staying calm.
Near the end she says, "It's like a snowman puked all over my living room."
At one point her youngest, maybe about 1 1/2 years old, shows her the empty bag and says, "See? See? See?"
"Ya, I see," she replies calmly, "you emptied the whole thing." Then he toddles off proud and happy as can be.
I watched the video with my father-in-law recently, and we both laughed and were amazed at her calmness. Now, what happened as she got off camera who knows, but her ability to breathe through the apparent "destruction" of her living room while also speaking to her children calmly and with humor and love amazed me. It made me think of the different perspective we have as parents when compared to our children's perspective in these types of situations.
This woman sees her couches ruined, her floor a mess, her vacuum looking at being clogged, her walls needing to be wiped down, and so forth. The kids, as is evident in the video, see the most fun floor slide and drawing material of all time. They have been extremely creative with their use of flour and are amazed at its ability to soar through the air, fluff on the couch, and move on the floor.
"Wow!" The kiddos think with amazement.
"Wow," the mama thinks with amazement.
And yet, those two wows and those two feelings of amazement sit inside them in such different ways.
This mama took something that could have made her irate and instead approached it with calm and I hope curiosity. Curiosity to see her children did not mean to destroy anything, they did not mean to make her day bad, they did not mean to leave her in a state of shock. They did mean to be curious, creative, and have a ball.
We all can remember this woman when our children "misbehave," act out, or do something we see as crazy. Like her, we can remember to get CURIOUS.
- What did they discover and learn?
- What were they seeking and did they find it?
- What were they thinking? (and then actually attempt to figure out what they were thinking rather than what we wish they were thinking!)
This curiosity can calm the storm inside and gives a chance to connect heart to heart about what the child's actions were really all about.
After curiosity, we can move into action - talking, cleaning, making limitations for the future, having the child help fix the problem, etc. For example, in the case of this flour, support their curiosity, but also have natural consequences take effect in requesting help cleaning up and then putting specific boundaries around the flour.
For example:
"Wow! I can see you really had fun decorating the living room with flour! Hmm.... but I have a problem, I don't want the living room decorated with flour. Can you help me solve my problem?"
"We can clean up!"
"Indeed, let's collect the broom and vacuum and start cleaning, and in the future, the flour can be used for cooking and not for decorating."
Verses:
"AAAAAHHHH my living room! What are you two doing? Go to your room, you have destroyed this living room!"
Which conversation would you want to have put into your face? Which creates connection, learning, and comes from a place of "I love you no matter what."?
Curiosity helps us understand our relationships better, our role in them and how to feed them more completely.
Next time your kiddos (or someone else in your life) are driving you nuts, get curious about what they are after rather than mad for what they are doing. You will be amazed at what you learn and how you different the situation is handled.
Good Things,
Britta
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