by Jessie Cooper | May 13, 2020
Over the last month, I’ve written about my own personal journey during COVID to shine a light on fear. This week, in honor of Mother’s Day, I’d like to write about parenting during COVID. Personally, I’ve gone through highs and lows. Some days, I’m so grateful and proud. Other days it’s a completely different story. Through all of it, I’m learning to love myself and my boys in the midst of imperfection.
Intentional Parenting
Prior to COVID, I liked to think of myself as an intentional mama. I made a lot of calculated decisions about how I wanted to raise my boys and had some pretty high expectations of myself. I’ve shared before that when I had Henry I suffered from postpartum depression. As a trauma survivor, I had an added layer of not wanting to do anything to harm my child. Not harming my children in a physical way, I don’t worry about that, but in not wanting to make a mistake. From there I spent the better part of 18 months being 100% attentive to Henry when he was with me.
I mean, I was that Mom we all hate. Calculated floor time, zero TV, homemade meals every night, cloth diapers, no electronic toys. I was perfectly happy doing all of this but I didn’t do anything except this. I gained being a mama in my heart and at the cost of myself (a bit). Enter Declan (my second boy) and keeping up at this pace was just not achievable at the same rate. I went through an angry phase, being angry at myself for not being able to keep it up. Then I realized while I could love all the different ways I could parent my children, the most important was having a full heart. That I needed to find time for Jessie and not just the mama in me. I’ve quoted it many times but truly, “How Not to Lose Your Shit with Your Kid,” changed me.
Changing Your Parenting Style
After I realized I couldn’t keep up the same pace of my “perfect parenting,” and with two children under 2, I gave myself a hell of a lot of grace. I let myself fail, break my own rules, and most importantly spent time taking care of myself too. I was able to keep the things that were important to me for Henry and Declan. This looked like eating whole foods, limited TV time (none for Declan he was not yet 1), being present when I was with them, and allowing myself some alone time when we were home together. This felt good. Really good. Enter Shelter in Place. Without my village, it all fell down.
I had gotten into this groove with my children because I allowed myself access to support. I made sure I didn’t expect myself to be with my children 110% of the time. My children went to who I consider their second mom’s house (Dana!) three days a week. Martin and I were rocking date nights at least every other week. I was going to the gym. I was regularly cooking at home (while still appreciating occasional restaurants). I was balanced. I was happy with myself, my parenting, and so grateful for our new son Dametrius finally coming home. Then, overnight, it was just our family and our responsibilities increased as a family increased exponentially.
I’m pretty lucky in the sense I had already laid the foundation with myself that it was OK not to be perfect as a parent. That to be a mama didn’t mean to be on point every second of the day. But a big piece of this was letting myself have some alone time. With sheltering in place, alone time is SO much harder to achieve. My husband works 40 hours a week from home with little relief from his work to help with childcare. Owning my own company means I have to be the flexible one with fitting my work schedule around the kids. It also meant I’m with our boys way more than my husband. I’m learning how to teach our new 8th grader. Dametrius just moved into his new home, so I had no idea what he knew academically.
Add my own hippie heart of loving organic foods (but not able to go to the store), limited technology, and being present to everything else and you’ll realize this was a tall order!
So I did something radical. I’m serious, this was big for me. I threw away my script. Seriously! I decided that the most important thing was something I already knew after healing from postpartum depression and parenting two very young children. It’s love. That’s it. Love is all my children need to grow and thrive.
Realizing What’s Important as a Parent
Don’t get me wrong. There are still things that are very important to me as a woman and mama. But if I kept up with my pre-COVID rulebook I was going to crash and burn. Honestly, looking back, I don’t know how I wasn’t crashing and burning anyways! Sure, I had help, but my expectations were sky-high. So now I expect failure from myself and my kids on a daily basis. We fail, we cry, we kiss, and we move on.
I still want my children to eat well but, honest to God, cooked my first boxed mac and cheese for them ever. I still want them to play in the dirt more than behind a screen but we have movie night every night. I still want to be present with my kids but I allow myself to check emails on my phone while drinking coffee each morning. Some days we have free days. This means jammies all day, movie mornings, coffee, and picking up a toy or something small in a pickup order. I’m resting for myself, eating as well as I can, and moving or getting any exercise when I have a few minutes for self-care. When I can’t do these things I give my heart a big hug.
Mostly, I’ve realized that while my village made my pace possible it wasn’t what my heart wanted. Being home with my children for this amount of time has taught me to follow their needs and my own together. I’m not the mama I was before COVID. I’m messier, louder, and I cry a little more. But you know what? In accepting imperfection I’m happier too. I hope through reading this that perhaps you can love your imperfections in parenting too. And hey, maybe you’ll become a bit closer to your authentic self.
Xoxo,
Jessie
by Jessie Cooper | Mar 3, 2020
Growing up, my parents were very structured and very strict. From a child’s perspective, I had a laundry list of things I did not agree with and regularly challenged (sorry Mom and Dad!). I can still relate to ways in which I was raised that still don’t resonate with me as an adult. This is not to say my parents were bad people, we just had very different perspectives.
That being said, one thing I thought was a top injustice of my childhood was my limited TV exposure. I know I felt on the outside when it came to what other children my age were allowed to watch, both in content and length. Now, as an adult, I’ll humbly admit “Mom & Dad you were right.” I do not believe in exposure to TV before age two and believe in continuing to control exposure through all of childhood. This is my belief as a researcher and a mama.
Limiting Exposure to TV During Childhood
So, why do I have such a strong belief in monitoring exposure to televsion? Why do I feel so strongly about not want my children exposed to television at an early age? Why do I want TV used with control and boundaries as my children grow up (Dametrious can tell you how unfair his screen time limit is!)?
I believe, and research supports my belief, that the use of technology in children under the age of two has a direct negative impact on language development. Per Welcome to Your Child’s Brain; “U.S. babies of seven to sixteen months who spend more time in front of the screen know fewer words. Two or more hours per day of screen time before the first birthday is associated with a sixfold increase in the risk of language delay. Even Sesame Street Viewing by babies correlates with language delay, though this program has lasting beneficial effects on three-to-five years olds.”
To elaborate, repeated exposure to technology builds new neural pathways in our brains teaching them to look for instant responses at a speed the natural world cannot keep up with. This can enhance symptoms of ADHD and autism, create antisocial behavior, and start an addictive engagement with technology. In sum, technology is built to teach us to engage with it and not the world around us.
Raising Children with Little or No Screen Time
For these reasons, I choose and teach to limit technology with all children, my own included. I know reading this might trigger some mom guilt. Trust me, I feel it too! This is why I think it’s important to talk about children and screen time.
As a working mom of young children, there is chaos at my house at any given moment. There are times every day where I feel I’d just like an easy out. An out that makes my children sit quietly so I can do, well, anything. TV is a huge temptation to use as a pacification tool. For me, however, the “sit and zone out” quiet time TV provides is not worth the cost on a daily basis.
When children are in front of a screen they are not interacting with their social world, period. This means that all their beautiful, developing synapses, synapses only available to them for their first three years of life, are going unused. When a TV or screen is on my children are not learning and many critical social and lingual milestones may be delayed. As their mama, knowing what I do, I just can’t stand in the way of my children when it comes to development.
Substitutions for Screen Time
So, my opinion is that any lengthy screen time is not an option for young children. What do I do to distract my children in stressful situations? First I have to tell you that limiting or eliminating screen time is definitely a lifestyle choice. Not using screen time as a tool means I have a lot of messy moments in my house.
For example: Every morning when I wake up around 6AM my husband is leaving for work, which leaves the task of getting three children ready for the day solely up to me. My youngest, Declan, nurses first, followed by Henry and Declan playing in my room and bathroom while I get ready. They take EVERYTHING out and turn my room upside down. Specifically, Henry enjoys “ice skating’ by putting lotion on his feet in my bathtub or maybe shredding cotton balls for his dinosaurs to eat.
My brain can get overloaded with all their quick little interactions with the environment of my bedroom or bathroom. A bouncy seat with Sesame Street on TV sounds SO nice. But I know if we start the day that way, all the beautiful energy and curiosity in the world will switch to a pattern of behavior to crave technology every morning.
So, Henry ice skates, Declan turns everything upside down, and I do my hair (while taking a lot of deep breaths). I play this scenario throughout our days together because being home with small children alone is HARD WORK. Whether it’s getting ready for work, being home during the day, bedtime–you name it–single parenting is no joke. If you throw in children with different abilities, like autism, and life may feel totally overwhelming. For me, keeping technology rules in our home is really helpful for dealing with the feeling of being overwhelmed; it gives me a structure to lean on every single day.
Screen Time Rules for Kids
With all the above being said, I still believe that TV and screen technology in general can be OK in moderation. But screen time must be my choice not my children’s. I have to admit, it’s been a real balance test for me since my husband and I introduced TV to Henry at 2 years old and I’m constantly fretting over his exposure. Declan still has not been exposed (minus seeing his brother set up for movie night on Sundays) at almost a year old.
TV rules at our house are keeping movie nights to Sunday night outside of special events like my husband wanting a boys night (Star Wars is out on Disney Plus). We also limit Henry’s access to 20 minutes a day or, sometimes, every other day. Up until Henry was 2 ½, there was almost zero daily exposure to TV. If I know I’m going to need a minute to myself, I plan 20 minutes around me, not him, for TV time.
We also allow zero screen time on Ipads, unless it’s a long trip or public place where we really need Henry to sit (Acceptable example: getting an Xray at the doctors. Bad-example: going out to eat). Every once in a while, I cut myself some serious slack, usually due to extreme outside stress, and use TV outside of our family rules. Because life happens. Just remember not to use every excuse you can to break the rules!
I know it’s a lot to digest the WHY of limited screen time from a practitioner’s standpoint. As a mama, I know reducing or eliminating screen time is not the easy route, trust me. But I chose this route for my children because I want them to be curious, messy, loud, and in love with everything that goes on around them!
If I make a choice to make TV part of their day or not, I’m making a choice to teach them to disengage from the screen world in front of them. And I think in the growing age of technology we could all be a little messier & engaged.
Xoxo,
Jessie
