Resistance

Resistance is something that comes up quite often in parenting. Whether it is resistance at brushing teeth, or not wanting to do something else.

My own experience with resistance and my own child is I need to look at rhythms, breathing in/out - physical/body versus mental/head, sleep, energy related to nutrition and so on. Also, sometimes it is easy to feel under pressure as a home educator from other sources - we sometimes try and push our children into a dishonest direction. I call it dishonest because our children know that we are not being true to our own family or true to what we want to do ourselves but are trying to comply to external pressure e.g. Family members with negative comments or state regulations etc. I find it helps to step back at times and try and be objective. If Springy is in pyjamas and won't get dressed I need to work out why rather than just tell her to do it. First off, can she stay a little longer in pyjamas or am I setting a good rolemodel? If I'm still in my pyjamas then I am not setting a good model. If we have only just got up then why rush out of pyjamas? What is the reason for getting dressed? Do we have to be somewhere or is it now 11am? Have I chosen clothes that she finds uncomfortable? Is it easier to give her some limited choices on clothes? (I've had it before where Springy really did not want to wear a particular top and it turned out the plastic tag label thing was protruding out and scratching her - once we figured it out and cut it off then she was okay).