Now that you have a good idea of our behavioral house rules, it’s time to enforce them. There are two main concepts that have served us well: the Loving Enforcer, and Parenting on the Same Page.
Becoming the Loving Enforcer is one of the hardest skills to develop as a parent—at least it was for me—and this is a topic that often comes up when we have discussions with other parents online. You don’t want to be a helicopter parent, pretending your child is never a problem, or swooping in to instantly rescue them or solve their problems or situations so that they eventually become unable to solve them themselves. You don’t want to be the hardliner either, with the “Do it because I said so” kind of stance that some of my friends grew up with, because that is guaranteed to make children frustrated and resentful.
Finding the perfect balance and being a strict but Loving Enforcer comes only with trial and error, and mistakes will doubtless be made. Shaun and I never see ourselves or define ourselves as our children’s “best friends.” I mean, are you “best friends” with other children? Of course not! Yes, you absolutely want your children to love you, trust you, and feel that they can confide in you about anything the same way they would with their friends, but you are not one of their peers. You’re the parent! This doesn’t mean you can’t have friend-like moments or enjoy the same things or laugh over funny jokes together. It just means that you always need to remember that you are, in the end, the ultimate responsible party for them. You can be the loving mother or father, but depending on the day, you may also need to be the Loving Enforcer and be able to say no when it makes sense.
A Loving Enforcer is strict but willing to be flexible should the circumstances warrant it (which, I have to admit, doesn’t happen a lot in our house!). My children know that I will always love them, but when the rules are broken, the Loving Enforcer unrolls the contract or takes away the phones and the car keys. No amount of begging will make the Loving Enforcer budge one inch. Our kids know that if they make bad choices, there will be definite natural consequences.
Most important of all, a Loving Enforcer is preparing these kids for adult life in the real world, where good people are not always rewarded and bad people sometimes get away with terrible choices. (I’ll discuss the notion of what’s “fair” here in Chapter 10.) Life isn’t fair, which I’ll discuss in more detail in the next chapter. So it’s up to you as the Loving Enforcer to allow your children to learn that life isn’t fair when the prices for their mistakes and the ensuing consequences are low. Family rules need to be followed. At the end of the day, this structure helps make our kids feel safe. Life will be more predictable and that leaves them feeling reassured and loved.
Just this past year, for instance, Rylan just couldn’t get herself out of bed, even though we tried to get her up several times. Not surprisingly, the school bus came when she was busy filling up her water bottle. She grabbed it and her backpack and managed to make it onto the bus, but forgot her gym bag with all her volleyball practice attire that she needed in it. The frantic texts soon began to arrive. We could have easily dropped that bag off at school to rescue her, but we would have still had to deal with the consequences of her sleeping in and forgetting stuff for school in the future again. So I just replied, “What a bummer. Sorry, next time hopefully you’ll remember.” And she will!
These lessons are often harder on the parents than the kids. It’s always difficult for me when I have to enforce the consequences. Sometimes I feel really awful and question whether I’m being a bad parent. Sometimes you might have other people question your methods, too. Once when one of the twins forgot her lunch, we followed our same rule about not saving her by bringing another lunch to school. We knew she wouldn’t starve in the three hours she had left of school, and we also knew she could come home later and eat a snack. But the school informed us that was harsh parenting, fed her a school lunch, and charged it to our lunch account. The lesson for us was that sometimes it can be hard to follow through on consequences when others undermine your parenting. We opted to tell our daughter that she was awfully lucky that someone else took mercy on her that day, but we continued to reiterate that she needed to remember her lunch because that wouldn’t always happen.
THE LOVING ENFORCER’S TIME-IN VS. TIME-OUT—FOR THE KIDS AND FOR YOU, TOO!
Time-outs are one of the most common punishments for small children—and they can be just as effective for you! Some parents have a time-out corner or chair, where the child has to stay quietly for however long the punishment lasts. Time-ins are the same principle, except the child needs to be near wherever Mom or Dad are for however long you specify.
Time-outs or time-ins are the most effective, I’ve found, when used sparingly. Otherwise, this tool can turn into an easy out for you because it’s reactive rather than proactive—the modern equivalent of our parents yelling at us to go to our rooms. Obviously you want whatever’s gone wrong to be fixed, but you need to find out what really happened first.
You also need to tailor the time-out or time-in to your kids’ personalities. I always do time-ins with Daxton as he can get so physically overwrought, it’s better for us both to be in the same place. I’ll say something like, “Dax, I’m doing my hair in my bathroom. You can sit right here next to me where I can see you and where you physically have to calm down because I’ve got my eyes on you.” That also keeps him safe and the other kids safe, too.
For the twins, however, a time-in would have been much less effective, because if they were butting heads, it was hard for them to be around each other. I’d send each one off to a different corner and let cooler heads prevail. Inevitably I would know when the time-out was a success because I would soon hear them creeping closer and closer to each other until they would be laughing or chattering in the other room together again.
Sometimes kids can be quite resourceful to get around time-outs. I can remember my mom sending my brother and sister to their rooms only to later find them both lying with their feet in the doorways, but their bodies in the hallway, playing checkers in the middle of the hall. Still technically on time-out, and in their own respective rooms! I can also remember the same siblings driving my brother’s remote-control car back and forth between their bedrooms with notes to each other during time-out breaks.
When I get upset, I prefer to have my own time-out someplace where I can take a break if the kids are annoying me and I know I’m about to blow a gasket! It’s okay to say, “Mommy needs to calm down. I’m going to my bedroom and I’ll be out in ten minutes.” Know when your buttons are getting pushed and withdraw—for me, it’s the only way to regulate. Because if you don’t, then the kids escalate behavior, then you escalate behavior, and then a small problem has suddenly started World War III in your living room.
How can you be the best possible Loving Enforcer? It starts with you being aware of your own bad habits. Or by admitting that your default response to a certain button being pushed will always be on the wrong side of right. It’s just as important for parents to be able to self-correct, learn to apologize, and acknowledge that often we also make mistakes. This shows our kids that it’s okay to be human and make mistakes. But that what’s most important is learning from them. It also shows kids that parents and children are partners in this journey. We are all trying to figure it out together. If parents can acknowledge their weaknesses, it will be easier for kids to forgive those shortcomings when they are older and admit their own.
One of my bad habits that justifiably drives my kids nuts is how I act when I’m super-busy. I’ll tell them to do their chores, and then they can come back and ask me if they can go out and do something. They dutifully do the chores, but then I say, “Ask me tomorrow,” because I’m preoccupied with something else. I just back-burnered them. They ask me the next day and I say, “Well, let me check my schedule. I’m not sure what’s happening.” They then ping me several times throughout the day, and I blow up and say, “If you bring it up one more time, I’m just going to say no!” The kids know there’s always the risk that they’re going to annoy me to the point where I’ll say no, even if I don’t mean to.
One day when I was super-busy with a work project and busily typing away, I heard four-year-old Paisley calling for Mommy through the stairway banister. I had already done the nightly rituals and put her to bed, so I was mildly annoyed to be bothered again. I called out a “Good night, Paisley,” and told her to go back to bed. Paisley would not give up, and just kept saying Mommy, waiting a few seconds and then calling Mommy again. Finally, in my very annoyed Mindy voice, I looked up and snapped, “What???” Paisley looked at me with her sad little eyes, tilted her head, and said, “I just wanted to say I love you.” Ugh!!! A dagger to the heart! Supermom of the year, right there! With six of them around (seven if you count my hubby), an office full of employees, and two dogs, all with individual needs, there’s always someone asking me for or about something! This really isn’t fair to the kids, and I know that it’s my responsibility to make time for everyone—myself, and the people I love.
Another bad habit I think a lot of parents have is forgetting that no one is a mind reader. With schedules shifting so quickly, it’s easy to forget as a mom that the rest of the family might not be privy to those changes, but sometimes we still expect the kids to magically know what’s expected of them. That’s when we slip up and say, “Well, you just should have known,” when something goes wrong.
Spell things out clearly. If you’re not sure what was said or not, then say it again. Better to get the eye roll, than to be in the wrong!
Also, try paying more attention to the family schedule. Make a calendar and post it in an area where everyone will see it. And be sure to update it regularly!
Even though we all do, no one likes to screw up and admit when they are wrong. Many parents do their best to avoid admitting their mistakes in front of their children. This doesn’t make you a weak parent—it makes you a strong one when you are able to say, “I’m really sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I blurted it out in the heat of the moment. I didn’t mean it.” Or, “What can I do to make it better? I’m sorry, I’ll try harder not to say or do that again.” It makes your kids realize that you have validated their feelings by treating them with honesty and respect, and by being genuinely sorry. This helps them learn how to apologize to their friends when they mess up, too.
It’s such an awful feeling when you know you messed up, and you see your child’s woebegone facial expression and your heart just sinks.
It’s the Bad Parenting Moment we all dread.
Being honest and apologizing might not undo the damage in that moment, but at least your children see you being genuinely contrite. Just know that five years from now when your child gets mad at you for something else entirely, they might still remember your mess-up and give you a verbatim blow-by-blow history of it when you can’t even remember what happened! Ha-ha!
All joking aside, I did just do this to my own father not too long ago. We were telling old stories about growing up, and I jokingly brought up a time when I remember my dad having a bad parenting moment. It wasn’t a huge deal, and as an adult, I can totally understand why he did it, so I was almost teasing him when I brought it up and retold the story. Later that day my dad pulled me aside and, in all honesty, sat me down to apologize. He felt really, really bad that I had such a memory of him, and expressed his love for me once more. He stated that, in hindsight, he had probably been too hard on me in that moment, and that he wished he could go back and undo that memory. I am so lucky to have such an amazing father, who is not only loving but humble.
Being able to sincerely apologize to our children when we make mistakes is a must. How can we expect them to own up and correct their mistakes if we can’t do the same?
One of the hardest things for some couples to do is be on the same page about their parenting rules and strategies. This is really crucial if you both want to be the Loving Enforcers with a minimum of triangulation from your children. Shaun and I are very lucky that we both grew up with a strong family structure, have many of the same values and faith, and are able to work out our issues without too much opposition! We’ve seen too many couples, who appeared to love each other deeply, fall apart and end up divorcing when life became overwhelming and they focused on their differences rather than their strengths.
Shaun: “Here’s why parents need rules: I think there’s a little bit of a misconception with people about what ‘freedom’ actually means. Parents who can create a solid framework of rules actually provide themselves some level of predictable outcomes. Those outcomes come with varying degrees of risk and reward. The freedom comes when we choose more and more favorable outcomes, thus gaining trust from within the system. With that trust comes the freedom to switch things up and adapt within the framework, based on a new set of environmental factors. This goes for all aspects of our lives, but becomes especially important once we see what our children’s personalities are like and what specific emotional needs they have.
“Rules provide a system within which our children can gain more freedom, primarily as they demonstrate that they are able to make the more favorable choices (from the basics of right and wrong) in a consistent pattern over time.”
Couples need to get on the same page and spell out their parenting rules, hopefully before they’re too deep into a conflict! Because life happens, and there will always be circumstances out of your control—somebody gets sick or your job is eliminated and you have to move, for example—but your rules will go with you wherever you go and whatever you’re dealing with.
I know this can be tough, because who’s to know which style of rules or parenting ideas are the best. I took the lead on introducing new parenting ideas in our home by researching a lot of books regarding different parenting styles, full of ideas that I wouldn’t have thought of on my own. Often, Shaun and I would lie in bed at night and I’d run through thoughts or ideas I had read about. We’d discuss them, and find the basics that fit best for our family. Occasionally, we would hit on something that we just couldn’t agree on, and in those circumstances, the only way forward was for someone to give in. That can be difficult, but I feel like we both have given in on things that we felt were important to us over the years, to try to keep it balanced. Parenting between couples is like a successful negotiation; it takes a good middle ground between both parties for things to go smoothly.
It can also be very helpful for parents to write out a contract, or create a rulebook, and revisit it every few months. This is especially useful if you’re dealing with unforeseen behavior, as we were with Daxton and his medical situation. If something you thought was set in stone isn’t working, ditch it. Be flexible, be honest, and be open to change. That’s what we want to teach our kids, right?
Playing their parents against each other is a skill I think all kids possess! That’s where the good cop/bad cop routine can quickly become standard operating procedure if you don’t get tough about putting your foot down. Especially when the kids are so sweet and adorable. That said, it can actually be okay to play a role in a certain situation, especially if you and your partner have had a conversation about how you want things to unfold.
One time, when Kamri was little, she forgot her school lunch. She knew the rule. No lunch, too bad, no expecting a rescue. She called me and I told her that we don’t drop off forgotten school lunches, and she said, in a quiet, tearful voice, “I know.” I told her that I loved her, and she responded with the same, then we hung up. She sounded so sad on the phone, but I knew I had to play Justice on this one. And if this had been a regular occurrence, I would have been, like, “Tough beans, girlfriend!” But Kamri was typically our best child at remembering her stuff and had earned a little more freedom within our family system. She had just forgotten that one day. I quickly called up Daddy on this one, who could come in and play Mercy. Shaun took care of it.
Shaun: “But I did it late. I didn’t want to swoop in before she had some cost assessed to her for not having done what she should have, even for something as small as forgetting her lunch. I showed up during her lunch period about ten or fifteen minutes late, with an Arby’s sandwich, some fries, and a drink. I remember walking in and Kamri was there sitting in the cafeteria, with her braids and her school uniform, sitting backward on the bench at the lunch table when all the other kids were facing inward talking to each other. She was looking down, swinging her little feet because they didn’t touch the floor, and it was heartbreaking. When she finally saw me, she got a big smile on her face, and her friends told her she was so lucky to get to eat fast food when all they had were peanut butter and jelly sandwiches! And she never forgot her lunch again.”
Kamri learned her lesson, and Shaun and I caved that day because it was so out of character for her.
So, you can sometimes use the good cop/bad cop scenario to your advantage, but only if the good cop and the bad cop are on the same page. Our kids, for example, know that Shaun is stricter on some things than I am—for example their clothing, how many earrings they can wear, or work-related responsibilities. I’m stricter on how they perform in school, their rooms being clean, and their friends/boyfriends. Kids seem to have a built-in radar for knowing which parent is a pushover about certain issues, so if Mom says no or Dad says no, they go to the other one crying and pleading about what they want. And then if one of the parents caves and is perceived as the good cop just to stop the whining, this can provoke a fight between parents because the bad cop has been undermined.
This is where spelling out rules and having contracts can stave off a lot of the good cop/bad cop potential conflicts, because you can simply point to the rules, and the Automatic No’s, and be done with it. Then have a bit of fun and surprise the kids on a day when nothing seems to be going right for them, by bending the rules a little bit and making an exception to them, as we did with Kamri and her forgotten lunch. Sometimes even hard-line cops can be real softies. And the kids will remember what you did long after you did it!
Shaun: “My mom was a very thrifty and health-conscious young mother. We never were allowed to eat sugared cereals. Not only would she sew all our clothes (even our underwear), but she would bake our own bread, give us daily vitamins, and taught us moderation in all things. That often meant sugar. I remember one Saturday, as a teenager, my mom told all four of us kids to get in the car to head into town for a fun day out. We did as we were asked. She took us to a pizza restaurant and told us we could order anything we wanted, even soda. She later took us to an ice cream shop and allowed us to order the Grand Teton Supreme (a monstrous twelve-scoop ice cream banana split). After that, she drove to the nearest candy shop and gave us each $10 to buy whatever candy we wanted. At this point we looked at her suspiciously, asking what was going on, because this was so out of character for my mom. She just responded with, ‘You kids have been so good lately, I just wanted to do something fun for you that you would never expect!’ We were shocked. On the car ride home, we kept waiting for a parental lesson on health and the dangers of gluttony, but it never came. I guess this is why Brooklyn and Bailey like traveling with me now! Moderation in all things, right?” *wink, wink* Thanks, Mom!”