When I’m asked to write a bio for myself when I’m submitting an article to another blog or to a magazine..  I tend to say that I’m a computer programmer turned stay-at-home mom and that one profession always goes by the books while the other seldom does.

It’s not by accident that I mention computer programming hand-in-hand with motherhood. A lot of the things that I learned as a programmer also help me as a parent.

For example, debugging. Imagine a computer program starting up. It shows a picture. Then the menu comes up with a blank gray background and… Then it crashes.

What just happened? It’s a bug. How could a programmer /possibly/ go about finding that bug in the thousands or millions of lines of computer code? They do something called “debugging”.

The concept that comes over to parenting is something called a “STOP”. This little debugging tool is inserted into the computer code and the computer runs the code, then STOPS. The programmer has it run the code again and then it encounters another STOP. If the computer crashes just after it hit a certain stop but before it hit another stop then the buggy code is between those two points. So now they may only need to look at ten lines of code instead of ten thousand.

So how does this translate to parenting?

Imagine that it’s time to start getting ready for bed. You know that your child often THROWS A FIT at bedtime. So you sweep your child up and go to brush his teeth. Not a problem so far. Then you leave the bathroom and… FIT.

Imagine the same process with stops. You go over to your child. STOP. Look at your child. Are there any signs that something is about to be an issue? What are they doing? Can you wind down the activity better? You do that. You sweep your child up. STOP. Did they consent to being picked up? Are they okay with your having picked them up or are they resisting? Do they want to walk upstairs themselves instead? Let them walk up the stairs or carry them depending on what it is they need. Go get the toothbrush. STOP. Look at your child. Are they trying to tell you anything with their behavior? Do they want a different flavor of toothpaste? Are they tensing up when you go to brush their teeth? Are they reaching for the toothbrush and are you pushing their hand away? Okay, she wants to brush her teeth. Help her make sure she does it well enough. STOP. It’s time to leave the bathroom. This is where the fit usually happens. Do you usually walk out or carry your child out? What is the child doing right now?

Sometimes the STOPS that you put in earlier help you isolate the point at which the child feels that they are being swept along and they lose it because they are a person not an object. Sometimes the STOP confirms that the problem didn’t start earlier and that it is truly isolated to a specific occurrence. What is it that is happening as it’s time to leave the bathroom? Is your child looking at something? Reaching for something? Not wanting to be carried? Does she want to say goodnight to something? Does she need to know what is going to happen next? Does she need additional wind-down time being carried and snuggled before you go into her bedroom?  Has she reached the point of being overtired? (Was she tired at a previous point in the routine?) Maybe starting the routine a half hour earlier would be helpful so that she becomes tired when she’s already tucked into bed with the books all read and her pajamas on and teeth brushed.

What can change in this time and place to change the pattern of what is happening?

*Keep in mind that some children hold onto and build up tension across the day and simply need to cry in the safety of their parents arms at the end of the day to let it all out. If you can’t figure out what is causing it, it’s okay to just be there and offer comfort while they pass through their upset. Tears are nothing to be afraid of, and children learn to control those strong emotions through being comforted by a safe person while they are small.