This is my go-to book recommendation when I first start working with parents. It takes all the mystery out of those confusing baby and toddler behaviours. It combines neuroscience and parenting into a practical guide on how a child's brain is developing. Once you understand how their brain works, you understand how they think. When you understand how the think, you understand how they act. Have you read it? Let me know your thoughts below. https://drdansiegel.com/book/the-whole-brain-child/

Hey everyone! It’s a pleasure to be here. I look forward to connecting with you all about the brilliant part of life that is raising kids

This is a common concerns for parents of children around 3-6 year old. They cry, or whine, but you can tell it is different from their normal cry. So what's really going on? Are they really manipulating you? Should you let them to do it? Or could there be some other explanation of their behaviour? I coached a couple on this very issue last year. They had a 1.5 year old son, and a 5 year old daughter. The daughter would be playing quietly by herself, and the parents with the son. But once the daughter noticed the parents playing with her brother, she would begin to cry. The father felt she was being manipulative. He would begrudgingly relent and give her attention, but felt conflicted about if he was enabling some kind of negative behaviour. If we take the definition of manipulation as "getting someone do something without them realising why", then yes, you could call this kind of behaviour manipulation. But it is unintentional manipulation. The little girl sees her brother getting attention. She feels left out. She wants to be included - the underlying need. What tools do she have available to her to meet this need? Well, based on her age and brain development, not much. If you read the book recommendation I left in an earlier post (The Whole Brain Child), you'll know that children under 6 years old find it very difficult to regulate their emotions, and often need a regulated adult to synch up with them before their rational brain comes back on-line. So in this moment of feeling left out, the girl is reacting emotionally. She reverts to a tried and tested way of getting attention from her parents - one that has been reinforced through years of habit. She cries. It's totally normal. If the father was to respond by saying "well I'm not going to let her manipulate me into giving her attention" he does two things. Firstly, he fails to meet her need. And secondly, he doesn't give her an alternative method of meeting this need. Instead, I offered this explanation..

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Children test limits and push boundaries. Their natural curiosity and desire to learn makes that inevitable. Part of what makes being a parent (mother or father), so challenging, is this very fact! But I want you to try and look at it from a different perspective. What triggers us isn't the behaviour. What triggers us is what we make that behaviour mean. When they don't listen to us... ↪️ "they are being disrespectful" ↪️ "they SHOULD listen to me" When they don't want to share... ↪️ "they are being selfish" ↪️ "I SHOULD make them share" When they cry after not getting what they want... ↪️ "they are overreacting" ↪️ "they are MANIPULATING me" These internal conversations we have with ourselves inevitably lead to one place....us REACTING! But what if you could catch the inner dialogue before reacting? If you were able to distance what you are making the behaviour mean from what is ACTUALLY happening? Would you still REACT, or could you respond differently? Let me know your thought below.