Always Screaming at Your Kids? Maybe You Have Too Many Trees
Sometimes I feel like I could yell at my toddler all day long for doing something she shouldn’t. I know I need to pick my battles. But where does this principle come from?
I wish I could take credit for this parenting lesson, but this comes from my friend Sarah. She told me that before she had her first child she read an Amish parenting book and it explained how God put the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the middle of the garden, so He could teach Adam and Eve character. Character can’t just be given to someone. Our children aren’t born with good character. It needs to be taught and tested.
She wanted to teach her son, Michael, character by learning to obey and to learn from the consequence of disobeying. The book also explained to associate pain with consequences. This isn’t a bad idea, but she found herself spanking her boy a lot. Any mother would feel horrible for feeling like they are beating their kid all day long.
Sarah prayed and asked God to show her how to change to the situation. God’s answer was simple – You have too many trees.
Michael had so many rules and things to get in trouble for that he couldn’t help but get into trouble. So Sarah eliminated some of the “trees” by baby proofing the cabinets and removing items of temptation. Not everything in the house was baby-proofed but many of the sources of trouble were taken away. Thankfully Sarah felt herself sane again and Michael was getting in trouble a lot less.
I think of this story often in regards to my own children. What are the few rules that we stand by and what things can I let go? There are certain plugs and wires that can’t be touched in the living room even though they are baby-proofed as much as they can be. My daughter isn’t allowed to bring drinks or food in the living room, because our carpet is dirty enough as it is (not to mention it attracts bugs.) She can see the TV perfectly fine from the tile of the kitchen.
Once I looked up and saw my 2 year-old drawing on her body with a pen at the kitchen table, I just watched her and let her do it. My husband saw it and started yelling at her and asked me why I didn’t get on her. I explained that I could yell at her all day for something. I can wash off pen ink from her hands.
We need to pick our battles with our little ones and determine what are the rules of the house that are non-negotiable. Perhaps teaching one rule at a time instead tackling many large issues at once. Teaching our kids character is important and they will learn it at their own pace. If you feel like you are constantly yelling at your kids, maybe you have too many trees.
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Fantastic, Amanda!
This was very encouraging and really made me step back and think about all of my “trees”. Thank you for a great post!
This is a great articulation of my own epiphany I had once my 3rd daughter was born. Tired of yelling into the night, I finally figured out that some things just aren’t that important (like them writing on their bodies). Now I focus on the absolutes, and I am absolutely more sane as a result; and, I believe, my daughters no longer look at me with that “now what are you mad about, mommy?” look. I didn’t want to have a battlefield style relationship with them, but rather one where they know they are loved – no matter what.
As a nanny of 2 1/2 and 4 1/2 year olds I agree whole heartily.
Great post! Thank you for the reminder.
Too many trees, interesting concept that I tend to agree with.
There are two mentalities when living with young children. One is that we make them learn what is ok and what is not (e.g. leave your glass figurines out and teach them they are for looking only) and the other is to remove most temptation so that you don’t have to constantly say no.
I am a strong believer in the second camp. Our house is definitely one that is lived in by young children. Once they grow older, I can bring all of my knick-knacky things back out. In the meantime, I want to set them up for success and I definitely don’t want to say no all of the time, we say it enough as parents as it is!
Yep, first rule is to always help them succeed. Find everything that they can get into that you don’t approve of and eliminate the problem.
Second rule is to pick those battles that are left, and only yell or discipline if it’s one of the three D’s (dangerous, disobedient, or destructive).
I think it’s particularly difficult with toddlers, since they’re trying to figure out everything in the world, all the stuff in the house is “new” to them, and they like to experiment. Also, with the first kid, you’re BOTH learning. It takes a while to balance things out and know which things are OK to let slide or (like Amy said) are on the “D” list.
I really like this post! It is very difficult with little people at times. It’s important to pick your battles. They are always going to want to explore.
What a great analogy! I wholeheartedly agree
Catching up on my mom crowd reading…:)…sorry this comment is a little late, but I wanted to give a little different point of view. In our house we only removed the items that were dangerous, anything that was decorative stayed put. It was and is important to us that our kids learned to respect those items and leave them alone. Why is it important to us? Because we want them to be able to go to houses other than our own and not worry about them touching every decorative item within their reach. We just had to be really consistent when we were first teaching them and for things that we could tell they were REALLY curious about we let them do what we called “one finger touch”. They could touch it with one finger (very gently). I’m gearing up for this stage again with baby #4…he’s only 7 months but I know it won’t be long before he is pulling up on things!:)