Non-Coercive Parenting and the Older Child

Question: Is it harder to be non-coercive with an older child?

Answer: I don't think it necessarily gets harder as children grow older. There are some things that can make it harder, but these have nothing to do with the child.

Believing that it gets harder will make it harder. Just having a core belief that cc is difficult or hard with an older child is going to cause you to create situations in which validate that belief. The converse is true. If you believe and expect that you and your children will continue to grow in a mutually respectful relationship, that will also be true.
Personal baggage, unresolved pain and conflict from our own childhoods can make our relationships with older children more difficult, but that isn't about the children or about their age. And the solution to this lies in ourselves, not in our children.
Holding onto limiting ideas about how children ought to behave. I think this is the big one. For some reason, many people have an easier time establishing a non-coercive relationship with young children, but as their children grow they become more restrictive parents, not less, demonstrating increasing amounts of distrust of their children's decisions and activities. This runs completely counter to the continuum expections of both parent and child: the expectation for increasing competency and self-direction on the part of the child.

I would say that at least 90% of the time, I still have the "easy dance" with my children. My daughter is seven and a half and my son is nearly five. I only run into trouble when I have inappropriate expectations.

For example, we've been going to the YMCA twice a week to go swimming since last October. During that time my daughter has taught herself to swim: underwater, breaststroke, on her back, summersaults, handstands, turning her head to breathe.

Recently, she let me know that she wanted to spend time in the deeper pool working on her swimming there. We changed our swimming days so that one includes open rec time at the larger pool.

Here's where I got into trouble. For some reason, that I can't figure out, when we did this, I became very invested in what she was doing in the pool. Underneath, I felt like I had rearranged our schedule so that she could have this time and therefore she was obligated to work on her swimming in a serious and focused sort of way per my expectations. The last two times we've gone haven't been entirely pleasant....I was trying to get her to swim certain distances or work on particular skills and she refused and I would get annoyed and it wasn't very pretty.

Yesterday, however, I got smarter. After about a half-hour I got out of the big pool and we went back to the kid pool. The kids played and rough-housed and I sat in the hot tub and had a good sulk until I got tired of feeling angry. Then we went back to the big pool and just played around. I stopped paying attention to my daughter at all...I just floated on my back and chased my son to tickle him and goofed around. I decided to enjoy being in more than 3 feet of water and to relax. And dd spent the entire time working on her swimming....over the same distances she'd insisted were too far an hour before.

I don't share this to say "see, I got what I wanted", because that isn't it at all. I let go of wanting anything in particular, because it was inappropriate for me to have those expectations for her to begin with. How she swims and how quickly she progresses and when or if she learns particular skills has absolutely nothing to do with me.

As I see it, the easy flow of our relationship was disrupted not by the fact that she's older, and not by the fact that she insistently and determinedly told me that she didn't like what I was doing. I disrupted it. I am the one who introduced coercion and control and overlaid my ideas onto the experience. I also failed to listen as she said specifically that the water was too deep or the distance too far or that she wanted to wait to take the swim test and not do it as fast as she had previously said. More accurately, I ignored her when she said those things. I had my own agenda going.

Most of the time, I go about my business and they go about theirs. Most of yesterday worked exactly this way.

My daughter had a soccer game in the morning so we got up and went to that. I sat on a blanket talking to another mother, my daughter played soccer. My son ran around on the grass, climbed trees and headed over to a small playground near by (about 100 feet away up a small hill). When the game finished they sat on the blanket for a few minutes eating their snacks.

When I was ready to go, I stood up and collected all the stuff and walked to the car. They followed. We all got in and went home.

I don't know what they did then...I think they went outside for a few minutes and then up to the playroom and my daughter changed her clothes.

I buzzed around the kitchen making burritos (at no one's request, I just made them). I put the plates on the table and headed to my study to get some work done. I heard dd holler something about "I smell beans" and they pounded down the stairs to eat. After a bit they were finished and I went in the kitchen and told them to clear their plates and I gave them each a bowl of ice cream (again, not requested). Then I went back to my study to work for a while.

After a half-hour or so I started gathering things to put in my bag, towels, goggles, etc. I told the kids to get their bathing suits. They did and then ran out to put on their shoes and wait at the back gate for me (they have trouble with the latch).

We went to the YMCA. My son took the member cards in. We went to dressing room and changed, my son running around naked for a bit, disappearing into the toilet for a pee and then returning to put on his suit. We walked to the showers to rinse off, my daughter holding the towels while I showered.

Except for the time I described above, everybody just did their own thing. I spent some time in the kid pool and some time in the hot tub. The kids went back and forth. We stayed until closing at which time the kids just followed me to the locker room.

I turned on a couple of showers and they started washing out their suits while I went to the locker to get the shampoo and body wash. I washed my daughter's hair and gave her the scrubbie full of body wash and I washed my son's hair. Then I went back to my daughter and helped her rinse out the conditioner (she loves to wrap her arms around my waist and press her face into my stomach while I do this), and gave my son the scrubbie. Then I washed my hair. The kids grabbed their towels and went into the sauna. When I finished showering I went into the sauna. My daughter sat on bench between my legs, reclining against my stomach while I combed her hair. After a few minutes we got out, went to the locker, got dressed, and went home.

I told them to hang on and not eat a snack because a surprise dinner was on the way; I went to read my e-mail. About a half hour later their dad arrived with joyful dinners from an unnamed fast food restaurant. When they finished eating, they left with their dad to go to his place to engage in covert activities related to Mother's Day.

They returned around 9:30. I was talking on the phone with my mother. After a while my son came and climbed on the couch with me and nursed for a bit. It was apparent that he was tired, so I went in the bedroom and arranged the bed. He climbed in and I sat on the bed talking to my mom. After a few minutes he was asleep and I went back to the living room. My daughter continued her own work on the computer until I got off the phone and went to bed at about 12:30 a.m.

TCCMaven

Non-Coercive Parenting and the Older Child