Positive Parenting: Being right isn’t as important as getting it right

by Kelsey Rasmussen

This column continues our series reviewing “And Baby Makes Three” by Drs. John and Julie Gottman. Chapters two and three, recapped here, emphasize the many benefits to baby when parents respond tenderly to children and simmer down their own parental conflicts.

Delight in your baby

It may take your baby only 40 seconds to mimic you sticking out your tongue. How many of us would still be paying attention to notice? It’s important to silence your phone, turn off the TV, downshift your pace, and wait for baby’s response.

People used to think that because babies can’t remember their earliest years of life, those years must not matter. Wrong!

According to the Gottmans, “During the first three years of life, fundamental neural structures are being built that have to do with Baby’s self-soothing, his ability to focus attention, his trust in his parents’ love and nurturance, and the security of his attachment to his mother and father. In other words, Baby’s experiences of parental respect and love are literally laying down patterns of brain tissue that will dictate Baby’s future responses to the world.”

In a pre-antibiotic world, one in four children died before the age of five. Prevailing wisdom was to isolate sick children and never pick up a crying child.

In contrast, the Gottmans instruct, “We cannot spoil a baby by responding to him. Our emotional availability and responsiveness to his emotional cues are the most effective ways of creating independence and resilience in him.”

They affirm what many parents know: comfort, touch and hold your baby, play face-to-face, and wait for baby to respond.

Cooling down conflicts

The Gottmans recognize that parents—including new parents—occasionally fight. Many fight over the same issues. The Gottman’s identify the key difference of those who are mastering the transition to parenthood vs. those who are struggling: it’s the process of the fight—usually gentler, funnier and kinder arguments.

“Even though they might explode with anger…there was no blaming, criticism or contempt. Nobody gets defensive, and nobody throws any punches.”

The Gottmans offer these guidelines for what children can handle:

• 0-3 years old: Babies should not witness parents fighting. Period.
• 4 years old: Parents can talk about minor disagreements in front of these children, so long as the kids also witness parents resolving the problem.
• 4-8 years old: These children love to see parents hug or kiss after a squabble, but “other endings won’t make as much sense to them.”

If parents slip up and a bad fight happens in front of the kids, more repairs are needed.

• 0-3 years: The Gottmans caution that more serious fights can “profoundly affect” children, “especially if those fights are savage.” Babies will need to be comforted and held.
• 4+ years: According to the Gottmans, “Young children believe that they anchor the universe,” so it’s critical for parents to assure these children that their fight “had nothing to do with them, and that we love them.” It’s likely that all parents argue now and then. So the main thing is to let these children know that occasional arguing is OK. The Gottmans suggest, “…we need to reassure them that we’ll work out our differences, and we need to apologize to them for upsetting them. Last, we need to give them a hug and make sure that our next conversation occurs outside the hearing of their beloved ears.”

Activity Highlight

One of the many practical strategies the Gottmans recommend is for parents to establish a weekly, private meeting to air big issues. Bring one problem, not a list of grievances, and discuss that one problem in that meeting, not in front of the kids.

Pro tip: Make a point of sharing with your partner using a ratio of three positives to one complaint.

During the first three years of life, babies build fundamental neural structures that play a role in developing their trust in their parents’ love. Image credit: Priscilla Du Preez on unsplash.com

Kelsey Rasmussen is a local resident and full-time parent of preschool-aged twins.