Last Thursday I 'snuck' into a parenting workshop. By snuck, I mean, I attended a parenting workshop even though I am not a parent. I think it was a good move though.
It was a workshop entitled 'Alpha Children: Reclaiming our Rightful Place' presented by
Deborah MacNamara, Phd. She is a part of the
Neufeld Institute, and having heard Gordon Neufeld himself speak last year, there was a great deal of links to what he said in regards to children and the things he practices and has discovered through intense study.
As always, I leave workshops feeling refreshed, but somewhat antsy about my practices. It's a chance to hear a philosophy and what works and what doesn't and apply what works into your own method of working with children. Last night was no exception, I left thinking, I see where this is coming from, and it all sound easy, but is it? And does it work?
She spoke about attachment, and how it is key to a child's development and upbringing. She spoke about being the Alpha parent yourself and that children are the dependents, of course they are, anything that we are meant to care for depends on us. The children need that attachment bond strengthened by 'taking care of the child' not the other way around. She showed how alpha children are expressing themselves more and more, and that often we allow the children to tell us what to do, thus increasing the 'bully' behaviour in our society. By contrast, she talked about reclaiming that alpha position in the relationship, and showing children that we are there to take care of them and to keep them safe. An adult that depends on your children to meet their emotional needs (ie. mommy is sad, I need a hug from you), you are allowing them to take care of you.... a role that is completely outside of the realm of childhood.
In extreme cases of Alpha positioning, children are expressing themselves through hate and aggression.... extreme aggression. As an Alpha parent, you need to be ahead of the game... read the cues.... see the temper beginning to flare, and deflect the behaviour. One example she gave with children that spit, was to have a spitoon available. When you read that child's behaviour, you say, 'it looks like you've got lots of spits in you, here's a place to put them and you can spit all you want.' The behaviour is deflected into a place where that is acceptable. It's similar to a children's book about anger I read a while ago, it explains that it's ok to be angry, and if you are angry go and push the wall... push it harder than you've ever pushed anything before!
Deborah shared an example of a child at school, when the teacher seemed to have been dealt the hand of lots of Alpha children in her class. All of those children were trying to assert their authority and to be the one in charge, only to find that the teacher herself was at a loss, she was immediately put in the 'dependant' position, where
she needed the class to listen,
she needed the class to settle down, she was depending on them to make sure that the whole class got something out of the lessons for that day. It was at that point that a child, who expressed to her mom that night, wanted to stand up in front of the class and chop their heads off, because they were just not listening. To us, that seems drastic, but to a child, that was her solution. What the class really needed was a teacher that could assert her alpha role and take the reigns.
This behaviour is not only manifesting itself in young children, but also in our adult relationships, where one partner, whether husband/wife partner or work partner, depends on the other.
So what was Deborah saying?
She is seeing a trend: children are less receptive to being parented or taught
children are more resistant and oppositional
there are more alarms or alarm problems
there is more frustration and aggression problems
there are more eating problems
there are more restless and impulsive children
So her suggestions were outlined in the form of challenges:
1. Make it easy and safe for your child to depend on you: take the lead in the relationship and in taking care of the child
2. Convey a strong alpha presence around the child: give the child the impression that you can and will take care of them, and be careful about revealing you own needs, dependencies, or fears.
3. Read the needs and take the lead: meet needs and not demands, this is especially important in regards to issues of proximity and food (an example she gave, was rather than 'do you want cereal or oatmeal?' make an announcement to the child saying, 'It seems like a cereal kind of morning.' when the child says, 'No, I want oatmeal.' Then you say, 'I knew you wanted oatmeal, I just was checking to see if you knew you wanted that too.' In this case, you are making it YOUR idea.)
4. Assume the alpha roles with regards to the child: to make the decisions you believe are best for the child, even if they are upsetting to the child.
5. Avoid provoking or reinforcing the alpha tendencies: ie: using what they care about against them, or revealing yourself as needing to be taken care of.
6. Provide a legitimate expression for the alpha instinct: Especially helpful in terms of an older sibling alpha, place them in charge of feeding others and helping them get ready for heading out the door.
7. Win the alpha battles that you can and avoid the others: by trumping or foiling demands ie: when a child is dawdling in getting shoes on, instead of harping at them, put their shoes on and their coat and their hat. Often we expect that children can do these by themselves, but sometimes they just don't want to.... trump that behaviour by going the extra mile to get them ready, do it all! It will happen eventually that they want to 'do it themselves' at which point you let them, DON'T DEMAND COOPERATION!
8. Set the stage for being the child's answer: arrange activities and interactions where you are clearly in the lead or need to be depended on.
So with that long winded review, I took from it what I wanted, chose to try to apply some techniques into my program. Some things I need to ponder further and make sense of it further, and some I just don't see the point. That being said, it left me feeling a bit empowered to remember to always remember that the children are in my care, because they depend on me, and I care about them. The last thing I took from the workshop is: it's not about perfection it's about consistency!
