Parenting: Two to Three Years

I know I'm not posting regularly, so thanks to those of you who are sticking around!

To be honest, it's extremely difficult emotionally for me to look back at what I did in ignorance when I know now how damaging my choices were.

So, I've already made posts in this series here, here, and here if you want to catch up.

Two to three years old is still a time of tremendous growth in the child's brain. At this stage, kids are starting to make the connections between objects (matching pairs, assembling small puzzles, understanding that numbers have value, etc.), showing rudimentary logic, and understanding sequence. It is at this age, you child might be able to follow a set of two instructions, such as, "First, pick up your Legos, then get your shoes." It is more likely your child won't consistently be able to do both tasks without reminders or help, but this ability is beginning.

The most important thing parents need to realize about this age is that two year olds' flawed understanding of cause-and-effect leads them to believe that everything that happens is a result of an action on the part of the child. For instance, your child may say, "I looked at this book, and then the mail came!" Consequently, s/he may express confusion when s/he looks at the same book the next day and the mail doesn't suddenly appear.

This age is also firmly rooted in the belief that "words are magic" and if they can come up with the right combination, what they're saying is absolutely true. For example, if your two year old spills a drink (because s/he wanted to carry it to the table "myself!"), s/he may blurt out, "I didn't spill that!"

From the parent's perspective, it's easy to conclude you have a little liar on your hands. However, your child isn't speaking an untruth to deceive you. S/he is trying (in his/her immature, child-like way) to actually fix what s/he's done! Instead of punishing your child, you can say, "Oh, no...accidents happen. I know you didn't spill on purpose, and you wish it didn't happen. Here's a towel; you can help me clean it up." This dialogue shows the child how to take responsibility while gently pointing out the difference between "I didn't spill that!" and "I didn't mean to spill that."

 I have a two year old right now who has been disciplined in this manner. She will come running to me saying, "I need towel, Mommy! Clean my mess!" Obviously, being two, there are times when she tries to take care of things all by herself, and I find a towel carefully placed over spilled cereal or tracked in mud. I take great encouragement from those instances though, because she is showing independence and personal responsibility the best she can.

Reasoning doesn't work well with this age. Again, they believe they can cause any effect and are still learning to distinguish fantasy from reality. Therefore, punishments like time-outs aren't as effective as they appear. Twos are great with sequence, so they may write on a wall, then put themselves in time-out because that's what happened last time. They don't understand why they shouldn't write on the wall or that time-out is meant to be punishment. They are simply following a known sequence of events.

Sadly, two is the age when many parents begin spanking (if they haven't already). With so much cognitive development happening, twos behavior is illogical and erratic. Strict rules and physical punishments at this age can actually impair cognitive development and make kids more aggressive. Severe punishments can cause brain damage.

All the traditional Christian parenting advice I previously followed sets up a damaging paradigm in the home. Spanking and punishing children for a normal part of cognitive development isn't loving. I daresay, it even provokes in them angry exasperation. This in turn causes more behavior problems, followed by more punishment. It's a vicious, vicious cycle.

Instead, I encourage you to work with your child, not against him/her. The goal is not to "make" your child do this or that; the goal is to encourage your child to make the best choices s/he can at this age and give positive reinforcement when s/he succeeds.

Finding My Voice

For those of you who don't know, I grew up IFB. The Independent part of the name means there are some variations. For instance, I grew up believing the King James Version of the Bible was the best translation, but other translations of Scripture were tolerated. At my church, some kids went to Christian school, and some attended public school. Unfortunately, we Christian school kids thought we were "better" than the public school kids, but that attitude didn't come from the church leadership. We were in a rural community, so women wearing pants was a non-issue, although dresses and skirts were expected at church services.

The promotion of patriarchy and subsequent views on the silence and submission of women and the breaking of the will of the child seems to be pretty universal in the IFB, though.

As you can imagine, being a female child in a Christian Fundamentalist Cult is pretty devastating.

I am naturally gregarious and intellectual. I want to know the reasons why we do things. "Tradition," "the Bible says so," "because I said so," and "It's the right thing to do," are not satisfactory answers for me. I'm naturally transparent and open.

These attributes were shamed and squashed by the unreasonable gender roles and developmental expectations in the IFB cult.

I talked too much. (Women are to be silent in church & children are to blindly obey their parents.)

I asked too many questions. (Questions meant I was "questioning authority.")

I shared too much. (Truth is a liability in a cult!)

I was too smart for my own good. (I picked up on inconsistencies between what was preached and what was practiced.)

I expected to be treated like an equal. (Clearly, I was inferior and didn't know my place.)

I am learning to find my voice again, after being beaten into silence in word and deed. And it's hard. It's terrifying.

But after the shouts of patriarchy drowning my voice, insisting on my silence, I am hearing men telling me that not only can I speak, I must speak.

My husband, reaffirming countless times, "I want to know what you're thinking. You have good insights, and your opinion is important to me."

A brilliant author of prose and poetry who responded via social media to my throwaway comment that speaking out was a mix of terror and elation, "Then you know you're doing it right."

A pastor who not only asked my opinion regarding a particular church ministry, but also took me seriously and asked me to please work on speaking my mind more often instead of trying to placate me.

So, I am speaking, despite my terror, despite the possibility I will again be told to be quiet. Here is my voice.


I don't know how
to express myself
without sounding
whiny
demanding
ungrateful
bitter.
Or something else I'm not
supposed to be.

Because I'm a woman,
I'm supposed to be
quiet
submissive (subservient)
meek
pleasant (always)
undemanding
receptive.

But when I express myself, I'm
Loud
Brash
Determined
Real
Opinionated
Fun(ny)
Crass
or (heaven forbid) ANGRY.

God is not embarrassed
by my expressions of emotion
or my questions.

God shares my RAGE
against victimization
injustice
abuse.

So listen.
Just listen
to my words.

Don't police my tone.
You haven't felt
the whip of injustice
or
the helpless
voiceless
emptiness
of abuse.

Listen.
Just
listen.

Eastern or Western?

If you've read this blog much at all, you've probably already figured I'm not a proponent of corporal punishment.

To be even more clear, I am a Christian who rejects the notion that our modern spanking methods were lifted directly from Scripture.

About 8 years ago, I was introduced to the concept of gentle parenting. Some great resources I found are Gentle Christian Mothers, Arms of Love Family Fellowship, Hermana Linda's Why Not Train A Child?, Dulce de leche, and Dare to Disciple.

One of my favorite resources (and not just because he's a male voice that other men in the über-patriarchal environment of Fundamentalist Christianity wouldn't disregard on anatomy alone) is Samuel Martin's Bible Child. I am incredibly impressed with his scholarship and tremendously appreciate the work he has put into researching this topic in particular. Not only does he publish his findings on his blog, he also provides a free e-book to anyone willing to take an honest look at Biblical discipline.

In this recent post, Sam explores the prejudices we can have toward things that are unpretentious or rustic, often conflating simplistic with inferior. Also specific to my background, ideas originating in the East were viewed with suspicion, whereas theories with Western origins were often accepted without scrutiny. Eastern practices were "improved" by overlaying or combining them with Western variants.

One (relatively minor) example of this was one of my Christian school teachers discussing the Bible passage, "O how I love thy law! It is my meditation all the day." She described meditation as keeping something constantly in your mind, "not that Eastern idea of meditation where you sit cross-legged and say, 'Om.'"

Even then, my mind boggled. Wasn't the Bible written in the East? And wouldn't it stand to reason when David wrote of meditating, it would look like the Ancient Jewish practice of meditation rather than simply keeping something in mind?  (I'll grant that om is Hindi, and thus not likely something David or any other Bible patriarchs would've been familiar with!)

I've had to confront my ingrained prejudices and racism since I've begun honestly examining my beliefs. I've found there is much about the Bible that I was taught from a Western perspective that genuinely doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

It is always good to periodically re-evaluate our beliefs. Obviously, we learn as we grow and mature, so it makes sense that we come into deeper understanding of our values. We discard what we discover to be half-truths, and we explore our new grasp of wisdom.

We need not fear taking information from any source, so long as we carefully analyze it for Truth.