It was always a struggle…
In my family toothbrushing has always been a struggle. Teo has had a really hard time remembering, and I have always thought it was my job (as his very responsible mom) to remind him.
Not that he ever appreciated it. Who would? Reminding someone can easily turn into nagging…
He started saying things like: “I was just about to do it. Now I won’t.” or “Every time you remind me, I feel like doing it less.”
Crap. I could really understand that feeling of resistance, and at the same time I couldn’t figure out another way to do it.
When it went down the drain
Last year it all went down the drain. Every evening turned into a nightmare of disconnection and arguments. Teo and I had always enjoyed our evening routine, our walks, tea and story time (book or movie)… Then it was all gone and replaced by animosity.
Yuck.
One evening he said to me in a very serious voice: “I’m taking toothbrushing to Connect-Up.”
Connect-Up are the regular meetings we have in our family to solve things that aren’t flowing. If Teo wanted to talk about toothbrushing there it meant he was done with how it was going and wanted it to change.
Connect-up
The observation he shared during our meeting was: “Our cozy evenings are gone because of toothbrushing”.
Then he told me that it really pissed him off when I was nagging him and that his need was for me to trust him. He also let me know that I was incongruent with the stuff I was teaching other parents. Ouch!
We had quite a long conversation about it, where I also shared how I felt about it and that my need was to trust him too. He said that he was on a learning curve and that the only way for him to learn how to do this on his own was NOT to be reminded of it.
Accountability can look different than you imagine
He wanted to become responsible and accountable for his teeth, and the only way for him to do that was by trying and failing and trying again. Basically, the conclusion was that I had to suck it up.
“I won’t be perfect at it, mom”, he said. “I know sometimes I’ll forget. But if I don’t get a chance to work on it, I’ll never learn.”
I got it and stopped the nagging. And Teo now is flowing in toothbrushing – and our cozy evenings are back!