Why, what and how of Observations?

 This post was triggered by a question raised by a mom who is homeschooling her child. Her question was how to observe and how long do I observe the child? To this I add a question - what do I do with everything I observe?

Being a mother of three, a parenting and homeschooling guide and facilitator and a former teacher, educator and social work professional - a major part of my work has been to observe and to be honest here - none of my education and courses taught me how to observe. Many a times I faltered as I didn't observe enough or I was quick to form my conclusions. Many a times, my beliefs, values and perspectives and opinions blinded my ability to observe and compelled me to be judgmental. My judgments and conclusions often led me to actions that were un-resourceful and unhelpful. 

Thus lets start by exploring "what is observation?"

Observation as I understand is the skill to use all our senses to gather information about what is happening in the surrounding we are in. It is essential for us to be present in the scenario and to keep our senses of sight, touch, taste, hearing and smell alive. 

Lets take an example: My six year old daughter was playing a 'pretend play' game with her soft toys. She was feeding them pretend food, cleaning their diaper, giving them a bath. I was sitting close by - reading a book. My attention shifted to what she was doing and I started observing her - 

1. What do I see - soft toys were arranged in a line. She picked up one toy at a time. She did one task at a time - i.e. brushed their teeth one by one, changed their clothes one by one. The clothes were all piled up in a heap. She served them food asking them what would they like to have and gave them options of what was prepared. I observed that she was listening to the sounds coming from the garden outside. The room was brightly lit by the sun shining in through the window, I saw Tara's hand covering her eyes every time she looked at the sun. 

2. What do I hear - her tone going high - when she emphasized something. Going low and soft when she put her dolls to sleep. I could hear her laughing, chatting away with them. Occasionally I heard sounds made by the toys, the birds chirping outside, chatter coming from the garden outside.

3. What do I smell - I smelt my perfume and my lotion. I smelt a damp smell coming from one of her toys. I smelt oreo biscuits.

4. What do I touch - I felt the breeze coming from the window and the fan, the heat from the sun shining into the room, I felt my feet touching the hard floor and occasionally the soft mat she was sitting on. 

5. What do I taste - I tasted my saliva. I sensed my mouth going dry and the taste of water I drank. I tasted the crushed oreos she plated for me. 

What I observed were facts. There were no judgements - mere facts and I was the one acquiring these facts and no one else was doing it for me. As I was observing, I was also part of her play. She had given me the role of a grandma who just sat and watched or read a book while she looked after toy babies.

As she was playing and enjoying herself, I saw her suddenly stop and say out loudly, "I am going out to play" and before I could react she was gone, leaving me in a room with toys scattered all around, Crushed oreo biscuits all over. 

A glance around the room got my temper soaring and I fumed out of the room saying, "Once again she has left without tidying up the room". I called out to her from the window and in a stern voice, asked her to come home at once. In my mind, I had already labelled her as irresponsible, indisciplined and careless. Fearing my reaction, she ran away to the farther part of the garden and hid away from me, making me boil even more. 

Why do you all think this happened - "why did such a lovely experience turn so bitter?" As I later reflected on everything that happened I learnt -

1. I was observing and I had accumulated information that I didn't use. I did not pay heed to an important observation that she was listening to the sounds coming from the garden. She was probably waiting to hear her friends voices. I wasn't making use of these observations to understand my daughter and her need to rush out to play.
2. I wasn't paying attention to a developmental need of children of that age to want to play with peers, make friends and discover themselves in the company of those who so far weren't a significant part of their life.
3. I let my need to continue with the experience and not have her end it abruptly put me into fight mode - where I used my position of authority as a parent to get her to follow my order to come home immediately.
4. I was quick to conclude and label her as careless, indisciplined and irresponsible and I had deleted / ignored observed facts that displayed responsibility and care. 
5. I was quick to generalize too. I generalized and labelled her and said that she was all this - as though she was going to be this way for ever.
6. I let my anger and frustration take control over me and stopped reasoning out the happenings. 
7. I didn't think of how my actions were creating an impact on her. I didn't ask myself - is this the outcome I desire?

If one goes through all the data that was accumulated during observation,  one realizes that I was a passive observer. I hadn't used the observation to enter my daughters world. Had I done so, I would have probably asked her  whether she was hearing something in the garden. She would have then told me that she waiting for her friends and would like to go out when she hears them playing in the garden. I would have probably been better prepared for what she would do as soon as she heard her friends playing and could have facilitated clean up well in advance, or could have reminded her to clean up before going out or simply been okay with postponing the clean up and doing it together later after she returned home. Or I could have recognized my need to clean up and done it so myself - without attaching anymore thoughts to it.

Thus how can observation help a parent:

1. Observation provides important data.
2. Observation helps parents enter the world of their children and engage with them in their play or activity.
3. Observation provides us data that would help us keep away from an unresourceful response of either fight or flight. (I haven't discussed the flight response through this example)
4. Observed data if used correctly can build acceptance and a non judgmental attitude that in turn makes a child feel safe and comfortable. 
5. It helps build trust between the parent and the child. 
6. The child connects with their parent openly and freely and also feels valued.
7. All this results in a more resourceful environment where every experience is joyful.

Whether we homeschool / unschool or send our child to school. Our actions toward our children leave a deep impact on our children. Our actions and our observations of how are actions are received give us important cues for reflection and learning. My reflections from this experience taught me to be more open, understanding and accepting toward my child. It taught me to stop, breathe, think and then act.

Parenting Challenges - Children and accountability

Last weekend, while Chetan and I were out visiting his aunt who had lost her husband just the night before, I got a call from my oldest son who seemed all hyper and anxious. "Tara and her friend have messed up the wall. There is slime all over the wall", he screamed. She has also locked herself in the bathroom and is crying loudly, he added. 

I listened to him calmly and asked, "Are you okay?" Telling me had calmed him down and he replied, "Yes I am now." I told him that Tara would be okay in a while and to give her space. "She will come out of the bathroom in a while - don't worry."

In a while, Chetan's phone rang and it was Tara on the other side. I don't know what exactly they spoke, but I did hear Chetan tell her it's okay and she shouldn't worry about it. 

When we were back we saw lavender coloured slime spluttered on the wall. It amused us to see everyone in the house all worked up about it. We asked Tara, 'What happened?' 'Why did you throw slime on the wall?' and she blamed her friend. "He asked me to throw slime on the wall" she replied. Her friend responded, "we first did it by mistake and then felt it was fun and so kept throwing it." I could see Tara check my expression. She probably got the message that I wasn't angry or upset and added, "Yes it was lots of fun." I told them that they had to be careful and not spoil the walls and we now had to think about how to repair the damage. 

We didn't have any more discussion until the following day when I checked the wall and tried to scrub off the slime. Some of it peeled off but the rest was stubbornly stuck to the wall. This time, I saw Tara look at the wall with remorse. 'I am sorry. Maybe we could cover it with something - stickers maybe." said she.

I am sharing this example here because similar damages happen all the time. It could be breaking something in the house, or spilling water all over the room or spilling food, soiling the floor with muddy legs...Parents often deal with such situations by bringing in strict rules or grounding the child or denying them something. We forget that it is natural for such things to happen. They do cause some inconvenience for the parent and probably adds up a task of cleaning up or repairing the damage - but they are definitely not the end of life.

We need to remember that,  'A small damage on the wall can result in a long lasting damage on the mind of a child. You could repaint the wall, but how do you repaint your child's mind?' 

When my oldest son was about the age of my daughter (6 years old) he was  constantly told to not write on the walls as it would spoil them. I would immediately try rubbing off any crayon or pencil line that found its way on the wall by mistake. I would blame him for adding more work on my already overflowing plate of work and would bar him from doing things he liked. On seeing the slime spluttered wall, his past memories came alive and made him agitated about it. His experience taught him that drawing on the wall was a crime. His anxiety led him to make Tara own up to her mistake. In fact I can imagine that he would have used the very same words I had used when he made such mistakes. He felt helpless when his sister shut herself in the bathroom. What he didn't understand that blaming her and telling her that 'mom and dad' would get upset was not helping ease the situation.

Tara responded by shutting herself in the bathroom. She was scared and angry and feeling helpless too and simply wanted to go away from the situation. For both it was an ugly experience.

It took Tara some time...in fact a day to share that she was sorry. She took her time to process everything in her mind and take responsibility for what happened. What I liked was that she was also looking toward moving on and finding solutions to repair the damage. 

But my son, hasn't yet spoken about his reflection. The damage in his mind is going to take a long time to heal. 

I have been reading Susan Stiffelmans, "Parenting with Presence." I so wish I had read it when my oldest was small. I would have avoided so many blunders. 

According to Susan, children are more likely to admit to a mistake when they think of honesty as a positive quality than if they think of dishonesty as something that leads to a bad result. So far I have always questioned my children when they hide something or lie. My tone has been authoritative and my question 'why?' has always made them defensive and fearful of a bad result. This probably played a big role in Tara denying a mistake. I realize that I could be more inquisitive than authoritative and I could replace 'why did you do that?" with a non threatening - 'how did that happen?' 

One thing I learnt earlier on is to never force a child to say sorry especially as soon as I notice their mistake or their mistake has been brought to my notice. My children feel at ease about this and say 'sorry' only when they mean it. According to Susan, "We must gently help our children be exposed to the injured heart of another so they can consider the impact of their unkind behaviour." To add to this, I believe we need to trust our child and believe that they would not harm anyone intentionally. Their unkind behaviour definitely has a reasoning behind it. When I say this, I in no way justify that behaviour, I simply ask parents to separate the child and the behaviour. The behaviour has to change and the hurt or the pain that is the cause of that behaviour has to be dealt with. 

Tara took her time to say sorry and said it when she meant it. She did fear my reaction and when her older brother blamed her, she reacted by shutting herself in the bathroom. In no way I justify this behaviour of hers as it resulted in everybody feeling helpless and agitated. Right now I do not have a definite strategy or plan to stop her from behaving this way in the furture. What I know is judging her on this behaviour will not help, nor will it help to infringe a rule to not shut oneself in the bathroom. I do know that once she believes that I will not judge her, blame her or punish her for her mistake and will help her take it in her stride, take responsibility for it and move on, she will stop resorting to such actions.