The C Basket

The C Basket is the basket that teaches me when to let go.  Everyone has habits and things in their personalities you aren't gonna love.  You can't control everything that your kids (or spouse or anyone for that matter) does in life.  The C basket helps remind you about what we can and can't (should/shouldn't) interfere with in life.  C basket items are ones we should just learn to let go of.  If they say "like" every third word - does it really matter? Do you think they'll still be doing this when they get a real job and are adults? Unlikely.

You may be surprised how many things fall into the C basket category.  So often something seems so important in the moment but when we take a step back we realize it is really not something worth making an issue about.

Lets take small kids as a simple example.  They love to dress themselves and often their wardrobe choices really don't align with what we feel is publicly acceptable.  Let's think about this for a minute - who is the one caring about clothing choices?  Is it me, the parent, worried about what people will think when I take my kids out looking a certain way? If kids would be allowed to control these types of choices and instead of them being battles they were just looked at as C basket issues - how happy could our home lives be? Small things so often get magnified and take on a life of their own but with a new magnifying glass we can better sort out which items are significant and which are really not worth the time and effort.  We hear so often in life to pick our battles but sometimes it takes a bit more clarification and thinking to know what really is a worthwhile battle.

Baskets change by the family and by the stage and there are always exceptions on top of that.  They are a framework which helps us make choices about when and how to approach our children's behaviors.  Big Picture and Baskets go hand in hand.  Together, they can hopefully help you build a framework to appraoch parenting.

At this point I think I may just dive into topics of interest and go back to philosophizing over parenting theory when the time seems right.

The B Basket

When it comes to the B basket, the guidelines I try to use are a few questions.  Will they outgrow this with maturity? Does this just bother me or is it an overall issue?  Even transient issues may need to be addressed at times because they're very hard to deal with and live with.  Sometimes they'll outgrow something in time but guidance would help them get through it.  There are things that kids need to learn because it makes the lives of those around them easier and that is part of learning also (think housekeeping habits).  B Basket items are more of a decision as far as when and how to address them.  The same No Discussion Just Repercussion applies - but you can decide when the best time to address them is.  There's flexibility in the B basket.

Before I get to the example on this one I want to make something clear.  Baskets are extremely helpful in dealing with struggles and issues which arise - but they also apply to positive situations.  I wouldn't want anyone thinking we're just figuring out how to discipline our kids here - I think positive parenting is essential.  If we want to build positive kids we need to have a positive spin on almost everything in life.  We want to approach the good in life and focus on it.  We want to build positive character traits.  We want the magnifying glass to show us all the amazing things in the world and that our kids have to offer and become.  Deciding baskets applies to the positive things.  Of course repercussions will be replaced by incentives in those cases - but the idea is the same.  Prioritizing what things we want to work on in our families and with our kids - the growth mindset - is baskets.

Let's look at a potential basket B situation.  In my house, school performance is usually a B basket issue.  While grades themselves are not actually important to me - the effort put into school is crucial.  Grades are often an indication of what type of effort is being put forward.  I'll give a disclaimer here - I've always felt that for things like doing your homework, I - the parent - am not in charge of repercussions for failure to follow through.  I want the school to take ownership of the assignments they give and I never give my children incentives for doing or repercussions for not doing their homework.  Don't get me wrong, I don't discourage doing the homework and I always make myself available to help and even give them gentle reminders but I don't give repercussions for not doing it.  I digress, because we were talking about grades or school performance.  If a child is putting forth effort and not able to perform, I don't think that is a B basket issue (there may be other issues to address but that, again, is another topic), but a child who is under performing because of lack of effort usually falls into my B category.  Although the issue is important, it is not crucial.  I choose when and how to approach that issue.  I may set up ground rules with clear milestones they can hit and/or ways to show that they are making progress and if they fail to do that go to the no discussion just repercussion which I laid out.  A child who craves extra time on electronics, for example, may earn more time if they show they are doing the work or studying needed to put forth a good faith effort.  Although the failure to do their homework may be contributing to the issue, that is a conclusion I need them to come to on their own (another more on that later topic).  By doing so they're building their own skill set of how to problem solve and find solutions themselves.  It also helps take the focus away from the symptoms and more toward the issue.  The issue is lack of effort.  Effort can come out in many ways - rushing through homework isn't putting forth effort - so had I focused on the homework I would have a "weak" case here in my discussion with the child ("but I did do my homework") and my child would have taken the wrong lesson from the whole exercise.  My goal in this B case was to help my child understand and realize the value of putting their "all" into things - learning to make the effort even when they aren't terribly interested.  So I have to make sure my incentives/repercussions focus on that goal.  I also have to keep in mind, when doing this, what other basket issues I'm facing with this child.  If this particular child has an A basket issue we are working with, I may choose to overlook this for a while until that issue has been resolved.  Its a very case-by-case approach which helps me keep perspective on the importance of the issue at hand.

The Basket Method

The second part of my method started with discussions with my mother. Whenever an issue arose and I would discuss it with my mom she’d say “is that really in the A basket?” So began the basket concept (thank you Mom!) - one I use frequently in dealing with all issues with my kids (and others) in my life. It’s a two part process.

Part 1 - make sure any issues that arise go into the correct “basket”.  There are 3 baskets (categories) that things can be sorted into. Basket A - the really important things. In my A basket I put items like safety, respect, self control to name a few. In my B basket - the significant but not ‘make or break it’ items. In my B basket I put things like school issues, housekeeping matters, friend issues. In my C basket - insignificant items. In my C basket I put things like annoying word usage, silly habits.

Part 2 - dealing with the basket issues. My A basket has the most important issues - they are non negotiable and have set repercussions. One has to set these guidelines up with the kids with discussions to begin with so expectations are clear. We often do this without thinking what we are doing as we set examples and have talks with our kids as they are growing and changing. The discussions end, however, in the repercussion stage. After the fact, once a mistake has been made, there is no discussion just a repercussion.

The clearest examples of these are usually simple - I'll start with straight forward ones.  As our discussions continue we'll try to apply this to the real life situations we encounter constantly.  Toddler age safety - Your small child is getting to walk instead of a being in a stroller and you've told them they can walk without a hand on the sidewalk as long as they don't run towards the street -- and they run toward the street.  They compromised safety so now they have to hold a hand even on the sidewalk.  No discussion just repercussion.  As kids get bigger the same concept applies, it just doesn't always seem as clear cut.  Now the child is old enough to cross streets alone and you've made it clear that they can either cross at a corner on small streets or with a cross walk on larger ones.  One afternoon they're going to their friend around the corner and you see them run right across the middle of a street.  They lose their walk alone privilege until they can display proper safety. No discussion just repercussion.  Obviously these are very clear cut examples where we aren't going to be flexible when it comes to a child's safety.  Each person has their own A basket issues and we have to decide what items are non-negotiable in our families and our lives.  It is the critical basket.  When these issues arise there are always consequences - no matter how inconvenient a time they are for us (or our other kids).  For those of you reading who have small children - I personally think it is a great time and opportunity to think through the A basket.  I often find people think something is critical and must be dealt with immediately but if they take a step back they find things aren't as urgent as they may seem.

When taken together with the big picture theory - baskets can really help you identify how and when to deal with issues - especially ones you're struggling with for a particular child.

In order to make this digestible and also not too time consuming I think we'll stop here for today and discuss the B basket in my next post.

Introduction

By way of introduction ...

Every parent has a story - their unique journey into how their theories and methods developed.  There are so many type of parenting methods - and some who have no set method just intuition and circumstance.  Some parents think and plan before they start their families and others just wing it.  I think I'd put myself into mostly the just wing it category when we started our journey.  My first kids were born when I was in my early 20's and I honestly didn't think much about a theory or a method.  I was busy and distracted between several young kids and work and life going on what seemed like fast forward.  As the youngest in my own family I watched my siblings parent their kids and mostly used the copycat method to start with - I like this and not that type of parenting.  As my kids have grown I realized I needed a more thought out plan.  I hadn't been consistent and with maturity and experience I realized the value in a more uniform approach.

As with so many things in life - my plan is evolving even as I type.  I like to think of myself as a constant work in progress.  I don't really see anyone, at any age, as a set in stone person. Life teaches us so many lessons if we just tune in to them and the more we can take these lessons and tweak our personal story with them, the better we become as people.  As parents, I sometimes feel we are held to an unattainable standard - often by ourselves as much as our kids - so we do the best we can with the tools we have and hope that they are enough.  As a friend recently told me, I aim to be a good enough parent - I think I'd extend that to myself as a person - I aim to be a good enough person.  Try your best and know that failure is really just an introduction to success.  My goal in writing this is to help other parents have a voice they can relate to, a place where they can get positive parenting ideas and methods, where situations can be presented and ways to approach them discussed.  Almost a virtual parent support group.  As a mom to several teens, I very often feel that need for a support group, so maybe I'm writing this to give myself that framework as well.

Back to the methods of parenting.  So there I was in the very beginning with the just wing it style of parenting, taking each day as it came and being a situational parent. As each situation arrived, I dealt with it in whatever way seemed appropriate.  This method wasn't working very well, as you can well imagine.  First, it lacked consistency because you're not always going to remember how you dealt with this type of thing the last time.  Second, thinking on your feet is a great skill but not always the most effective strategy in life.  Last, I realized I am a person who analyzed every situation after the fact and was self-critiquing often.  Over time I realized that if I did the critique before the actual event I would have a much better handle on my life.  I like to think of this as Big Picture Parenting.  The thoughtful or big picture aspect of parenting helps you to develop an approach in which you look not only at the specific situation you are dealing with but the overall picture of this child, their current status and what is going on in their world and your families world.  It helps as a way to frame whatever is happening with that child.  If every issue was looked at not just for itself but as part of the bigger picture of who that child is and what their particular struggles are it would be much easier to decide how to approach their particular issues.  This works both in positive and negative situations.  Life keeps going - no matter what we do one thing you can always count on is the passage of time.  It is quite easy to be a bystander in your own life without meaning to be one.  It takes thoughtful introspection to become an active participant in your own life.  The ability to stop, reflect, and adjust behaviors accordingly is a skill that can be worked on as a person.  The same is true in parenting.

Many people Big Picture it subconsciously but sometimes it takes just spelling out the simple truths in life to revisit the way we approach things.  As a parent, I believe it helps to think through the why and what of the choices we make with our kids before we make decisions. And honestly - after also.  Making mistakes and not thinking things through is part of parenting and life.  So is failure.  The questions is not only why we failed in a particular situation but how we can succeed the next time around.  Be it the next day or week or situation.  Parents are a work in progress as much as kids are if only we take the time to think things through. 


A quick and simple example - you're deciding if your child can or should have extracurricular activities after school  Everyone is doing baseball and you want them to be part of a team and involved in what their friends are doing.  But with this particular child - once school is over they are so done and free play works so well for them.  Do you push the issue and force them to be on the team because you think they'll gain certain types of group skills from it and you want it for them or do you just leave it? Once you big picture this you may realize YOU want the baseball team but your child just wants to be left alone.  As situations are presented here later on, I will try to Big Picture them to help develop this framework.  Sometimes a small amount of retraining our thinking can go a long way in our lives.