Calm Empathy, Calm Empathy

Two discussions in the last couple days got me thinking. One was a discussion with a group of women describing their current parenting struggles on our first day of class on Friday and the other was a text chain with a friend nervous about a consequence she’d given her daughter. Both lead me to think about how the cornerstone of parenting is really the attitude with which we approach it.

The two founding principles of Love and Logic® center around adults setting firm limits in loving ways and, when kids cause problems with their misbehavior, adults holding kids accountable by handing the problems back to the kids in loving ways.

But what does that look like in practice? The six skills of Love and Logic® give parents (and teachers) specific strategies to use, but they all center around remaining calm, empathetic, and loving while holding kids accountable.

As my text chain this morning concluded, it’s all about calm empathy.

It’s about our attitude when we talk to kids, and it’s all about our attitude with ourselves when we trust our decisions we make regarding our kids and forgive ourselves when we mess up, which we will.

So often when I coach parents, they tell me after a couple weeks that their kids behavior hasn’t really changed yet, but they feel so much better, because they feel like they’ve “got this.” They feel so much more calm.

The misbehavior cycle is a theory that when children misbehave and adults react with frustration or anger, the adults reaction feeds more misbehavior, creating a cycle. When an adult gets frustrated or angry with a child, the child may feel like he’s not a good kid. This gives the child a negative self-concept which leads to more misbehavior.

When we, as adults, instead portray calm empathy about the misbehavior, we send the message that they’re good kids, it’s just the behavior that needs a consequence. This breaks the misbehavior cycle, leading to less misbehavior and more responsible kids.

I often tell the parents I work with, from those with one-year-olds to those with teenagers, to approach everything with the attitude, This is no big deal. I’m a good parent; you’re a good kid. I’ve got this. When something happens that a kid has to have a consequence, you let the kid know that you feel really sad for them, but also let them see that it’s not having a negative affect on you, personally.

The text chain today ended with my friend concluding that “calm empathy, calm empathy” would make a good chant. And I pictured Buddha as a dad mediating about his kids with a “calm empathy” mantra.

This time of year, this may be a good mantra for all of us!  I'll be following up with one skill a week to focus on that will help us to maintain this calm empathy.