It's Not Personal It's Developmental

One of the first things I experienced when I became a parent was that everything felt personal. When our baby wouldn’t sleep, somehow it felt like I was failing. When our baby wouldn’t take a bottle, again, somehow, I was failing. The first time I got a call from my son’s kindergarten teacher, I felt like a huge failure, “he’s having a hard time following what’s expected in class,” she said. I was crushed. What had I done wrong? What was I missing, and how had I failed my son in such a way that I was getting a call from his teacher? All of it has always felt so personal.

When I started on my journey to become a certified coach, I genuinely believed that I would be learning the exact behavior modifications I would need to address my son’s behaviors and get him to cooperate, follow the rules at school, and generally do what was expected of him as well help support other parents who were experiencing similar challenges in the same way. I just knew that if I could figure out the best way to get him to comply, everything would be golden. I didn’t realize that having those beliefs meant I was still taking everything personally regarding my son’s behavior.   

It's Developmental: As it turns out, children cannot be trained, because the human brain was not designed for such simple inputs and outputs. This is why punishments and rewards (known as behavior modifications) are generally not an ideal way to garner long-term results for a certain behavior pattern. A child’s brain is only partially developed at birth and not completely developed until age 25-28 depending on the person. We now know this is true by watching brain activity in functional MRIs over decades of research and analysis. When we look through the lens of development, we start to put together a very different picture of what children under the age of 25 should be expected to and be capable of doing consistently and without support, scaffolding, and a lot of prompting from the parents.

When you work with me, you’ll learn what is developmentally appropriate for your child's age and why taking their behavior personally interferes with your ability to respond effectively. We will develop strategies to help you learn how to cope with the triggers that our kids can bring up in us and understand why they are there in the first place. You’ll learn effective ways to have empowered conversations with your older kids, and how to enforce boundaries with children at any age.

This article will be featured in the October 2024 editions of Lake Tapps Living and Bonney Lake Neighbors