Six. Pick up your sticks

And put them promptly down.

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Today I told Malhaar she is a “stupid, bad child” and that I do not want to help her fall asleep (something that I do every single day and every single night).

It gets worse - for a minute I wanted to hit her real hard.

As many of you know, Malhaar is 2.5 years old and she attempts every day, multiple times a day, to test every limit and push every button for all of us at home.

This is a home where we are very proud members of the gentle parenting ‘club’. This club often gets a pretty bad name in the parenting community, and that is only half the reason why I share this post. The other half is that I really need to vent.

This afternoon, just before nap time, I picked up Malhaar in my arms. The basic lift - your hands under her armpits/shoulder. She decided to play ‘hyperactive toddler’ at this moment, and began to climb on my chest with both legs. At one point, both her feet were at my throat, she flexed her upper body in such a way that she was directly pushing at my throat and I experienced some kind of throat contusion. I could not breathe, the pressure hurt physically, it was relentless and she seemed to be having too much fun to stop. I also momentarily lost my voice which meant I wasn’t able to call out to anyone to come and help release her off of me. (I am a little under the weather so I am not sure if that made this experience worse, but I do think it would be pretty bad regardless of this viral infection).

I remember one thought - I could drop her right now and this would stop. I could just let go of my hold on her. But I knew she would fall right on the hard tiled floor and I don’t feel comfortable going into the potential dangers of that. I’m sure you know what I am saying. Dropping her wasn’t an option. The bed was a few steps away but the physical contortion was such that I couldn’t walk up to it to drop her on the bed.

Here’s what I did: I dug my (clipped) nails near her armpit where I was holding her. She whined, lost focus and released pressure. I walked up to the bed, dropped her down, ran out of the room and SCREAMED that she is a stupid, bad child and I don’t want to deal with her and especially will not be putting her to sleep at nap time in a few minutes. I was seething. I knew very well that my daughter was not intentionally trying to choke me to death, but tell my amygdala that.

It’s been a couple of hours since this incident, so I’ve been able to process it a little. The thing is, it wasn’t just this physical assault (this was what it was, even if unintended), it was also that she was having so much fun doing this to me. She was laughing, she was having a blast, while I was genuinely struggling. It felt like she was laughing at me. Today is the most triggered I have felt in the past 2.5 years of parenting.

I almost hit her so hard. I was a millimetre away from physically reacting to her. Somehow, I did not. And I am so incredibly proud of myself for this but honestly, I was so close to doing it that I am not going to sit here and chide you if you ever have crossed that line with your child. Here’s my point. While I didn’t hit her, I did hurl angry words at her. I called her ‘stupid’ and ‘bad’, both things that no toddler really is. I then threatened her to not do the one thing she relies on me most for: helping her fall asleep. I used whatever power I have over her.

Here’s what happened next. I somehow regulated myself, found my calm. Went back to her, picked her up and took her to take her meds. We were both very silent. Suddenly, she hugged me (very gently) and said (in Hindi), “I will be gentle, can you please help me sleep?” This is the closest my 2.5 year old has so far come to an apology, and it was wholeheartedly accepted.

I took her in for her nap, and I told her (again, in Hindi): “Malhaar, you are not stupid and you are not bad. While playing you caused me very bad pain and I reacted using very harsh words. I am extremely sorry. This doesn’t make you a bad child.” She said “I love you” (she does this before falling asleep every day) and fell asleep within a minute.

I will not lie to you. I gave myself a good internal beating for this whole thing. The guilt was all-consuming. How dare I say I am a gentle parent? A lot of my fellow mom friends have seen me writing long (oh, loooong) texts about the gentle, conscious approach, the kind, empathetic approach. I was sure I could never show them my face again. I almost wanted to go say “Haha gentle parenting is a sham, right guys? Let’s make a club about that!”

It came to me suddenly. This wasn't a Haha! moment, it was an Aha! moment. My crash course in generational cycles, in the impact of modelling behaviours, in toddler expression all at once. The thing is - sometimes we ridicule things because it’s easier to do that than to fully commit to it when it gets hard. It’s easy to say, “This works only on Instagram”, but I am sharing this because I saw a lot of these social media concepts play out before me today.

Generational cycles: Most of us will agree that we were seldom apologised to as kids. Our parents didn’t think it was necessary to come and apologise for their words or actions - they usually believed in letting time heal it organically. The truth is, apologising to your child is SO hard. It doesn’t come naturally. There is a genuine tug of war in my mind - one voice says “Oh please, this is silly. She won’t even remember it, you don’t need to say sorry.” The other says, “Do it. Say sorry. You’re not too big to apologise.” If I had acted in that way with an adult (my partner or my friend, for example), I would have apologised because I wouldn’t take their forgiveness for granted. I know they’d remember, and they’d hold me accountable. But toddlers appear to just forgive and forget. The question is: What if they don’t? What if the toddler isn’t keeping score but their self esteem is? And if the jury is still out on this, where’s the harm in saying sorry? The only thing it will hurt is your ego - it’s time we admit that and try to break this.

Modelling behaviour: Since she flipped the switch and transitioned from infant to toddler, I have done this repair thing a lot. No, really. A lot. :) I tend to be pretty passive aggressive. But big or small, when I yell or say something mean, I go say sorry. Then I wait to look for signs that my apology has been accepted, or I repeat it. And I think this was registering somewhere? Today, she pretty much apologised to me in a way that I understood. So hey - I didn’t just not lose this game, I think I actually levelled up.

Polite words: Sorry, please, thank you. Today I realised that what they say about toddlers not knowing how to apologise or express gratitude is only partly true. Perhaps we’re just so busy looking for those specific words that we are blind to everything beyond it. The famous magic words. I think at the toddler stage, one of their magical powers is that of invisibility. I saw remorse in Malhaar's eyes today. Heard it in her words. Felt it in her request. She had done something that really hurt me and she was feeling bad about it. Instead of commanding our kids to say the words, maybe we could all try to model the behaviour and, more importantly, express the emotion. Remorse, respect, gratitude. Look out for it. Retrain your eyes and ears.

And the most important: Support caregivers. This parenting thing is hard, man. The first place I went to vent today was to my husband. Next, I went to my two closest mom friends with kids almost the same age as Malhaar. In both these places, I found validation. I found support. It has refuelled my conscious parenting endeavour. Perhaps next time I’ll do even better (by my own yardstick).

Here’s my hope. When Malhaar talks about her childhood in the future, she will not describe me as the parent who was always calm, the parent who was a saint, or the parent who always used child-appropriate language. I would be the parent who occasionally swore, the parent who displayed huge feelings and broke down. But I will hopefully also be the parent who apologises. The parent who goes and repairs. I will never say “Sorry, but you did…”. I will just, be sorry. For what I did.

The thing with the gentle parenting club is that it offers a lifetime membership to anyone with a one-time ‘payment’ of attempting to adopt the approach. No one kicks you out. The only way to leave the club is to walk out yourself. All we need to do is keep trying.