A mom on EP shared this video with me:
Can you imagine? How do you react? In our society I think the first reaction is to yell. Yell like you’ve never yelled before. Maybe spank. Send the kids to their room. The “usual”. But this mom doesn’t.
Here’s what I see:
1) Children who are having the best time ever. Do you see the way they are exploring? The way they are playing? It’s brilliant.
2) A mom who is freaking out, yet manages to remain calm and not threaten or yell or hit her kids. Kudos to you ma’am.
Here is a mother who is floored, so much so she’s feeling sick from it. Yet she manages to remain calm and ask what happened. Her children aren’t afraid and in fact are happy to show her and even tell her to watch out. It’s beautiful.
Does this mean that this is okay? Isn’t my reaction the reason people equate gentle parenting with permissive parenting?
NO this isn’t an okay thing to have regularly happen. BUT look at the ages of these children – they are young and curious about their world. This is that parenting moment where we strive to step back, see the fun and learning and engagement our kids are having, and then make plans to ensure this doesn’t happen again. Put the flour higher up. Get a container they can’t open and keep the flour in there. Then have them help you clean it all up. After all, although children shouldn’t face fear and punishment for exploring their world, they also should know that they are responsible for the whole of their actions. You made a mess and had fun? Okay, now you get to clean it too (with some help) and learn how this whole play/responsibility thing works.
That, folks, is gentle parenting in action.
Here’s my own daughter’s foray into flour one day after I went to the bathroom – it spread further, but nothing compared to the video above!
Lol, what you do is get out a vacuum cleaner! Love it.
Would people really get angry at a toddler for something like that? A toddler? If my son did something like that I’d be kicking myself for letting it happen, but he’s still mostly a baby and only doing what comes naturally to him. Sure if I was having a very stressful time I might feel for a bit like the mess was too much to bear and it was so unfair. But tbh, I’d know that ultimately it was actually pretty hilarious and that bad as it might be in the moment, there was a lifetime of looking back and laughing to follow.
My youngest brother did much worse when he was about the age my son is now. He was up with my parents, having a later bedtime than my other brother and me, and he wondered out alone to the kitchen and emptied a bag of cornflour and another of powdered custard all over the floor. He then tried to clean it up but as he swept, all he did was get clouds of it all over the place. He decided water was needed to clean it, so dragged a chair to the sink and proceeded to throw cups of water all over the kitchen. This made the powder clump up into a gross, sugary glue, especially as the custard contained powdered egg. It was round this point that my parents realised he was being ‘too quiet’ and that’s how they found him. Their first reaction was to grab the camera and photograph him throwing water at the mess. I don’t know what else was going through their heads but I do know that in the morning they were laughing as they us told the story and that’s it’s something that nearly 30 years on we all still laugh about. They certainly never blamed a baby for doing what babies do.
Kudos to the Mum…who did not loose her temper, nor yell, nor faint. Of course, the next step would be to sit right down with the boys (twins?) and draw pictures on the floor with them. Once it has happened, enjoy it. Then help the children learn, too, that with every pleasure comes responsibiliby…of helping tidy up.
Reminds me of a similar situation which happened 32 years ago with my twins…in another country, where supplies were hard to get, and things had to be shipped in, once every 6 weeks. The twins got into the birthday party supplies and emptied cocopowder, coconut, jelly crystals, sugar and flower out onto the concrete kitchen floor and proceeded to “explore” … my first reaction was to laugh, second to reach for a camera, third to “work through” the lesson to them (and myself). As one wise person put it, the supplies were not so easily accessable to the children (or myself…price of having children) after that.
When something like this occurs…is it life threatening? Has it really destroyed anything that matters or is irreplacable…are the children really responsible? Lets work through “what happens next” one process at a time…taking time out to delight in the child’s world along the way!
I’d probably have to stop myself from laughing to be honest. This looks like great fun. Then I’d remember I have to clean it up but still funny. Who doesn’t love vacuuming? Could be worse like something saucy or markers. 😛
Hi Tracy,
This actually has happened to me with my son who was barely crawling at the time. He got ahold of the pancake syrup. There was sticky syrup all over the floor, cabinet, his hair, you name it. I, like this courageous mom, grabbed my phone and took his video. I want to show it to him when he is older, and he is able to understand right from wrong, and I am sure we’ll have a great laugh then. It took me about 90 minutes to clean the mess, but it was worth it. I promise I’ll upload the video on Youtube and share with you.
You have some great advice on the blog. Thank you!
Oh my – maple syrup would have tested my patience, so good on you 🙂 I’d love to see it 🙂
Does anyone really think this wasn’t staged?
Any parent who has children close in age, as these two are, will readily believe that this is legitimate.
With my children, it was lipstick all over themselves and the bathroom while I was chatting on the phone… in the days of corded landline phones. I realized something was up when the crawler started crying. I thought her toddler brother had shut the bedroom door and she wanted out. After I discovered the truth, I went back to the phone laughing, told my friend what had happened and that I’d call her back later. Thankfully I had a cleaner that took the lipstick off the woodwork, toilet, sink, fixtures, and even their clothing. I still chuckle when I think about it. And I’ll never forget that first look at the kids sitting there in the bathroom with lipstick all over them and every surface they could reach.