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Recently, a mommy blogger shared an ingenious trick she developed in order to be kinder to her little ones. And, this piece of advice involving just a few innocuous hair ties, has taken the Internet by storm!
Once Upon A Time, There Was A Blog Article…
When Kelly Holmes, author of The (Reformed) Idealist Mom, lost her cool with one of her three girls during the course of a particularly stressful day (we feel you sister!), she decided it was time for some change.
Holmes then developed a visual technique that would aid her in her endeavor to be patient with her children. Every day, she wears five run-of-the-mill elastic hair ties on one wrist. Any moment she happens to snap at her girls, she shifts one tie to her opposite wrist. Her goal, she claims, is to have each of those five ties remaining on her original wrist when the day is done.
But naturally, parents being humans, aren’t exactly perfect. Hence Holmes’ method allows parents to earn back a displaced hair tie through interacting positively with the kids. Holmes says that according to studies, it would take you five encouraging and loving positive interactions to erase the impact of one negative one.
What Parenting Experts Have To Say
Author, psychologist, and speaker, Eileen Kennedy-Moore, Ph.D. claims there is a lot to love about this technique: “It’s easy to use. It recognizes that anger and irritation with our children can be a habit. It encourages peaceful communication. It acknowledges that if we want our children to behave better, we have to put our calmest and kindest foot forward. It allows for imperfection and gives simple ways to get back on track rather than staying stuck feeling like a bad mom.”
Associate Professor in Clinical Psychology at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, Dr. Michelle Cutler, happens to agree. Dr. Cutler elaborates on how she believes the most vital part of this technique is the reminder to parents to be heedful of what message they deliver to their children.
Cutler states, “I think the author is right in recognizing the day-to-day stressors of parenting! And how some kids are more able to ‘push our buttons’ so that we lose our cool than others. On the basic level, this is a good way to change a behavior that has become a habit. The most important thing is recognizing when we lose our temper and making an effort to changing it.”
Chair of the Washington D.C. located The Chicago School of Professional Psychology’s School Psychology department, Dr. Eleazar Eusebio, Psy.D., however, is a little uncertain about the effectiveness of this method at first go.
“Upon first reading The Idealist Mom’s article, I thought the hair tie strategy seemed a bit unusual”, says Eusebio. “However, considering it adopts noted psychologist John Gottman’s exploration of positive-to-negative ratios in marriages and his ‘magic ratio’ of 5:1 positive to negative interactions, there appears to be some benefits that could generalize over to parent-child relationships.”
“According to Nobel Prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman, we experience approximately 20,000 moments each day, and the quality of our lives is determined by how our brains recognize and categorize our moments as either positive, negative, or neutral”, Eusebio explains. “The hair tie strategy can help a busy parent to monitor their positive and negative interactions with their children.”
The fact remains, by trying this technique you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Being a better parent is a challenge every day, but the payoff, we can all agree, is definitely worth it. So go ahead and challenge yourself, mommy, so what if people comment on your bizarre new fashion trend!
