Children are doing the best they can, with what they have, at any given moment. 

How does that idea land for you? Are you nodding your head yes and agreeing with vigor or perhaps agreeing but with slight hesitation? Are you shaking your head in dismay and feeling frustrated by such a statement? 

(This is a good place to pause and ponder on the answer to that question. I invite you into curiosity and to wonder how that belief you just identified came to be, how it impacts your role as a parent, and how it is serving you in your parenting. Aim for no judgment (good or bad), just the answers to these further questions. Your answers are neutral, remind yourself of that. Sit, breathe, and take a pause to reflect. There is no rush.)

When our child bites their day care friend it is really hard to trust that our child is doing the best they can. When our tween forgets to unload the dishwasher (again!), it can send a rage through our body we didn’t know we were capable of feeling over dishes. When our teenager “borrows” the car without asking first, we can become so irate we want to lock down their phone, ground them in their room, and never let them see sunlight again. These and many other actions (or inactions) taken by our children should really come with trigger warnings for parents. 

Alert, alert…please be advised the 8 year old left their lunchbox in their bag for the entirety of summer break and it has grown into a science experiment…alert alert. Please use your sensory strategy first, then put on your sterile gloves and proceed with caution. 

How helpful would that be?

Until this technology is developed and ready for prime time we must make do with our own self regulation and intentions. One mindshift that can help as we navigate parenting is to trust that our children do well when they can. Dr. Ross Greene is credited with this short, simple, and wholly spectacular reminder. Children are fully human and in their humanity they will make many mistakes, just like we do as adults. Reminding ourselves that their brains are not finished developing, that their inhibition skills require over two decades of practice to fine tune, and that they are often struggling with their own dysregulation can help us remember they do well, when they can. 

When our toddler struggles to share, we can approach them with wonder.  I wonder if my child’s brain has wired enough to know sharing does not mean losing forever? I wonder how I would feel if I had to share my iPhone just because someone else wanted to use it or because someone bigger said my time with it was up? I wonder if my child has had a rough day and is finding comfort in the item they are being asked to share? I wonder how I can support my child in this moment? I wonder if sharing is needed right now or if it is okay for my child to continue to play with the toy? I wonder what other things could be true? I wonder how to comfort my child in this moment when someone else has not shared?

Dr. Becky Kennedy offers a brilliant strategy for believing in the humanity of our children that she refers to as MGI. She starts with the premise that everyone is good inside. If we can hold this as truth then it becomes much easier to see our children as doing the best they can in any given situation. If our children are good inside then they are inherently worthy of our compassion, grace, and meeting them in our own self regulation. If our children are good inside and they do something we perceive as “not good” we can focus on their humanity before we focus on their actions or inactions. Dr. Kennedy offers an invitation to approach our children’s behaviors from a mindset of offering them the Most Generous Interpretation (MGI) of what they have done or not done. Instead of reacting to our children, we can pause and decide what is the most generous interpretation of this situation and then proceed with this information in the forefront of our next step. 

When our teen is screaming that they absolutely cannot help with a chore because they have to write a paper that is due tomorrow, we can approach them with an MGI. Could the most generous interpretation be that they needed downtime so they didn’t work on the paper over the weekend and now they are feeling a heavy layer of pressure and fear about completing it in time? Are they dysregulated because they know they will be up late tonight and still have to get up early for school in the morning and they know school is harder the more tired they are? Is the most generous interpretation simply that they are a teen with hormones causing massive brain and body changes and they have been feeling overwhelmed by their emotions so they couldn’t focus on the paper earlier? 

When we take the MGI approach it does not mean we allow them to scream at us, but it does mean we reach into their humanity and offer them support first. We can say, “I see you are frustrated right now and that is okay and understandable and I am not willing to be screamed at, let’s both take a few minutes, it is okay you are mad. It makes sense to feel overwhelmed.” We don’t need to use all of these words, especially with younger teens or younger children simply starting with the presumption of a most generous interpretation and offering to see them, reassuring them they make sense, and creating space will often lead to collaboration because we have opened a doorway to them as learning, growing, needing human beings.

Another approach is to focus on the roots of the behaviors we are seeing. The team at Jai Institute uses a Root to Bloom model to help parents reflect on what is going on underneath the behaviors we see. The bloom is the behavior we see: big, bold, and plainly present. The roots are what led to the bloom, they are often hidden, deeply below the surface, and kept in the dark. When we can break a situation down into the bloom and the roots, we are better equipped to support our children to grow blooms that make them and us feel more peaceful and joyful. 

When our ten year old once again forgets to take out the trash or rinse their dinner plate we often focus only on the behavior and devising yet another strategy to make them finally and forevermore remember. Approaching this situation with the Root to Bloom process can be much more enlightening and calming. Starting with a neutral analysis, “The bloom is this plate is on the table instead of rinsed and stacked next to the dishwasher.” What are the roots? Is my child’s prefrontal cortex still developing and so they lack the skill of inhibition which would allow them to rinse the dish before running to their video game after dinner? Was my child still hungry and simply focused on what snack or leftovers they might be able to eat? Does my child struggle with memory issues or is their executive function still developing (this takes until 24 – 26 years old) and they need a reminder list or a verbal reminder? Is my child worried about a situation that happened at school today and does not have the bandwidth to do the task without support? Getting to the roots, which may require conversation or simply a mental review within the parents mind, will set both the child and parent up for greater peace. 

Whether we decide to remember that children do well when they can or to offer the most generous interpretation or to use root to bloom in our interactions with our children does not really matter. The critical peace is to identify our children’s humanity, their support needs, and parent with the intention to empower them to grow in a home where their behavior is not seen as who they are, but rather their humanity is prioritized and supported.

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If you long to create more harmony, peace, and joy in your home and with your children, please consider signing up for one of my parent coaching courses where you will learn real, tangible, long term solutions for parenting with intention and connection.