María Soto is a specialist in Positive Discipline (an educational model based on kindness and firmness, positive communication, empathy and respect towards the child and the person who educates) and is the founder of the Educa Bonito initiative. She delighted us with this workshop on patience, in which she made us understand that our children’s bad behaviors are due to “bad decisions due to inexperience and moved by their desire to belong & rdquor ;.
“He who never loses patience at home does not have children, he has furniture & rdquor;. With this confession, María wanted to invite us to know “what happens in us, because that way it is easier to educate from calm & rdquor ;. And that’s why she took us trip to the brain, offering a simple explanation that our children could understand: the brain is the only organ that is not born developed and has several levels that are developing. Maria represented it as a clenched fist with several layers.
The first is the vital brain, which regulates vital functions. The second is the mid or animal brain, in which they “live & rdquor; emotions, impulses, instincts and mirror neurons, which enable emotional contagion. And the third level is the prefrontal cortex, which does not finish developing until the age of 30 and is responsible for logical thinking and emotional regulation.
“The children”, María told us, “have half their brains in the air, they are moved by emotions”. For this reason, this expert added, “they don’t listen to us & rdquor; our logical reasoning, “because they are watching us and we infect them with emotions with mirror neurons & rdquor ;.
The founder of Educa Bonito is very careful not to feed our monster of guilt, that’s why she told us: “You don’t have to beat yourself up, losing patience is human & rdquor ;, but nervous and shouting “we can’t educate, we don’t teach anything good & rdquor ;. In other words, “When emotions overflow, the rational brain shuts down. Let’s not act at that time & rdquor ;. Choosing not to act if children or fathers and mothers are nervous and overwhelmed requires courage to control ourselves, respect for our children and ourselves and the confidence that calm will give us the solution. María Soto wanted to underline one of the most famous quotes of Jane Nelsonauthor, together with Lynn Lyott, of the book positive discipline, designed for fathers and mothers: “Where do we get the crazy idea that for a child to behave well you have to make him feel bad? & rdquor ;. María opted for the motivation and encouragement to get the collaboration of our children, who want to feel useful and important.
Maria was very understanding of the frequent loss of patience of fathers and mothers. And she explained it like this: “Educating is the most intense task we have. And they do not prepare us to educate & rdquor ;. In the workshop, before an audience of about 80 people, María asked us what things get on our nerves, things that have nothing to do with children. And there were many responses: “the tardiness, the interruptions, the lessons from the non-parents, the disorder….”. Faced with these things that unnerve us and have nothing to do with our children, we usually put up with it, because, as María says, “If we talked to our friends like we talk to our children, how many friends would we have?”.
We also reflect on things that relax us: “reading, crafts, hugs…”. Maria concluded: “We need not to lose sight of self-care & rdquor;because “What are we teaching our children if we don’t take care of ourselves? Are they going to respect us or are they going to respect each other if we don’t respect ourselves?”. Although she confesses that she paints very badly, María was encouraged and painted a stool with four legs. One of them is Me, another is Family/Couple, a third is Social Life and the last one is Responsibilities. “If we don’t take care of our four legs, it’s normal to lose our balance and patience,” María explained.
Again we talked about that undesirable companion who is guilt: “When we lose patience You have to leave guilt behind, which does not educate & rdquor ;. María invited us to live these mistakes “as learning opportunities & rdquor;. But What moves the behavior of children, and also ours? Maria is clear, “the sense of belonging. What we have achieved as a species is by belonging to the group & rdquor ;. Our children, therefore, “have wrong ways of seeking belonging, they make bad decisions due to inexperience”. María told us that she does not like the expression “misbehave & rdquor; and that she would replace it with “wrong decisions & rdquor ;.
We represent our children’s behavior as the tip of an iceberg. If we don’t see the background (the beliefs that motivate it, why -and not why- it behaves that way), we will limit ourselves to trying to control the behavior and we will get frustrated because we will not succeed. (or told with an example, if they are hurt by something that has happened at school “they set it up for you & rdquor ;. Our children need us to see the whole iceberg). In an exercise of empathy to understand the bad behavior of our children, María asked us what we would do if we see that in a customer service site they ignore us. The public answered: protest, shout, leave… As Raquel de Diego told us in the workshop on conflicts, María stressed the importance of asking ourselves why our children do things.
In the same way, our children wrongly decide how to get attention (to be listened to), power (to have a certain margin of decision), justice (to take revenge for something that seems unfair) or capacity (to have a certain margin of manoeuvre). And all this they are looking for is summed up in that they need to feel important in the group, that they belong to the group.
“We have to give them options so that they see that we take them into account, like”, María told us with a laugh, “do you want an egg or an omelette for dinner?”. In short, “if we understand the behaviors of our children most connected to them, without taking it so much to heart, we will not lose patience so much”. Maria gave us an example: When we had a baby, we did not understand her crying at so many in the morning as a disrespect to our authority, but as the manifestation of her need. The same thing happens with what we call “bad behaviors”, says the founder of Educa Bonito.
This expert understands education as an exciting journey. “And without wanting to remember Dora, what do we need to go on a journey? A map & rdquor ;, she told us between laughs. That is why we must know where we are starting from (and the public spoke about the situation they now had with their children: dependency, tantrums, lateness, sleeping, jealousy…) and where we want to go (assertive, supportive, with a sense of humor, empaths….). For Maria, the point where we are, the problems we are experiencing now, go in the “child pack & rdquor; and they are challenges to overcome. The future we want is a process and we cannot lose sight of destiny. It is clear that children are going to make mistakes (or they are going to “behave badly”), but our children must be clear that “I matter to mom more than all the times I’m wrong & rdquor ;. For that, we must make them sharebecause “When there is an order, the resistance is always activated.”