The TEAM Method of Calmer Parenting

 This week's article summary is The TEAM Method of Calmer Parenting.

I am at the point in my life when I reflect on things I did when I was younger. As a grandparent who is now watching my kids parent their kids, I think back on how I parented and what I would/could/should have done differently. 

I have similar reflections on what I did in the classroom.

As such, this article really resonated for me both as a parent and a teacher.

The TEAM acronym—togetherness, encouragement, autonomy, minimal interference—is easy to remember yet provocative yet difficult to follow as it is so different from typical parenting in America.

I am by no means a proponent of children should be seen and not heard but I am just as averse to placing children on a pedestal which, as the author states, can lead to children being “the beneficiaries of others’ good works, with little or no obligation to reciprocate.” 

In hindsight, I think I coddled my kids too much and didn’t give them enough opportunity and autonomy to pitch in and do the right thing for others. I acted as their conscience and disciplined them when they erred.

I also wish I was had followed the author’s advice to walk away from power struggles and arguments with my kids. I still have flashbacks to battles over completing homework and learning how to study a little each night versus cramming for a big test.

Like last week’s last week's article about parenting, this week’s has classroom implications as well.

Joe

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Three years ago, I sat at the Cancun airport in a state of paralysis. I stared outside, trying to figure out if what I had just witnessed could possibly be true. Could parenting be that effective? Could children be that helpful and respectful? 

The day before, I had been visiting with families in a Maya village, nestled in the Yucatan Peninsula. I spent hours, talking to moms about how they raise their children—and watching their skills in action.

What I saw shifted my whole sense of how parenting could work. The moms related to children in a way that parents, all over the world, have turned to for thousands of years. I believe this approach may just be the lifeline parents need right now as we enter the second year of the pandemic.

I call it TEAM parenting, for its four main elements: togetherness, encouragement, autonomy and minimal interference. In combination, these elements minimize conflict and foster cooperation.

What really stood out to me was the children’s helpfulness. One morning, I watched a preteen girl, wake up and immediately begin washing the dishes from breakfast. No one had to ask her. The family didn’t have a chore chart on the kitchen wall. “Does she volunteer help often?” I asked her mother. “If she sees there is something to be done, she doesn’t wait,” her mother told me.”

At the time, I thought perhaps the Maya families had some parenting skills that Western parents, such as myself, didn’t know. But I was wrong. The Maya parents aren’t the exception or even rare.

And yet, Western parents have forgotten key elements of this approach. We’ve forgotten how to motivate kids to do chores without nagging or bribing, how to discipline without yelling or time-outs, and how to relate to children in a way that builds confidence and self-sufficiency.

Many of our cornerstone practices—the practices we think we have to do to be good parents—go directly against TEAM parenting. These practices make our lives harder and our kids anxious because they go against children’s innate instincts to work collaboratively with people they love and to learn through autonomous exploration. Western children are too often provided a lifestyle where they are wholly the beneficiaries of others’ good works, with little or no obligation to reciprocate.

In Maya communities, everyone is expected to pitch in with activities, even toddlers. A Mayan mother told me, “As early as they can walk, you can start asking them to help, for example, to bring you this or that.” As the child grows up, the tasks become more complicated. Instead of just fetching the herbs, they’re making a whole dish. Instead of only setting the plates, they’re clearing the table and washing the dishes.

Over time, the child learns useful life skills, but they also learn something critical to a peaceful home: how to work together with their family. How to collaborate. Cleaning up after dinner is a shared responsibility that everyone one in the home does together. By the time kids are age 9 or 10, they are competent contributors, helping their family on their own initiative. Parents don’t need to nag or bribe them to do it.

And what does the Maya parent do when a child refuses to help. They don’t start a big argument with the child.

Arguing and negotiating with children is so common in my home, that I thought it was a universal practice worldwide. But that idea couldn’t be further from the truth. 

Mayan parents encourage proper behavior, but they never yell, nag, or even negotiate.

Mayan parents see arguing with children as silly and a waste of time. When a parent argues with a child, the parent stoops to the child’s level. The child simply learns to argue and to value arguing.

American toddlers get a lot of attention when they’re angry, or they misbehave. But there are a lot of parents in the world who just completely ignore a child’s anger and misbehavior. Over time, the child learns that anger doesn’t work. And they stop doing it. 

So next time your child misbehaves, simply walk away. Turn your back and walk away. Same goes for arguments and power struggles. If one starts to brew, close your mouth and walk away. You don’t have to go far, maybe just to the other room, or even just a few feet away. Your silence and distancing will calmly communicate to the child that their behavior is unacceptable.

This advice is much harder to implement than it sounds, at least for this Western mom. When my daughter disobeys me, every cell in my body wants to yell or argue. That’s how I was raised. But once I learned this new parenting skill, my 3-year-old’s executive functions quickly improved, and conflict in our home decreased dramatically.

Our lives improved even further, when I stopped executing the third major pitfall of Western parenting. That is, when I stopped being a bossy pants. If we want our kids to be confident—and we want to protect them from anxiety and stress—we need to curb the commands, instructions, and lectures (yes, even the praise), William Stixrud and and Ned Johnson write in their book, The Self-Driven Child.

Parents in other countries value the right to autonomy. And this view extends to children, even toddlers. As a result, parents don’t feel this ubiquitous urgency to “fix” or “manage” a child’s behavior. This restrained style doesn’t mean that parents don’t pay attention, or don’t care what children do. A caretaker is definitely watching to be sure kids are safe. But parents have confidence that children know how to learn and grow, without adults constant meddling. Anything a parent says—the vast majority of the time—will only get in the child’s way and generate conflict. So parents interfere minimally.

Studies have linked autonomy with confidence and better executive function in children. As they grow up, autonomy is connected to better performance in school and increased chance of career success, Stixrud and Johnson write.

On the flipside, when parents constantly manage a child’s behavior and schedule, they can feel powerless over their lives, Stixrud and Johnson write. “Many [American] kids feel that way all the time.” That feeling causes stress, and over time, that stress can turn into anxiety and depression.

Three years ago, sitting at the Cancun airport, I felt lost as a mom. My relationship with my daughter was filled with tension and conflict. I dreaded the time I spent with her. But as I slowly added these universal parenting practices into our lives, Rosy went from being my “enemy” to becoming my teammate—perhaps even my most favorite person in the world.