Peaceful parenting à la burundaise
Have you heard of peaceful parenting? It’s a method of parenting that builds trust and understanding between parents and their children. It focuses on building up children to become self-loving, compassionate, capable, and confident adults. When parenting peacefully, the goal is to leave as few traces of trauma as possible when your children become adults. Peacefully parented children learn their strengths from a very early age and are not afraid to face challenges. They are empowered to express their genuine feelings from the start. As such, they are able to recognize when they are not valued.
When I first learned that this is an actual method, I was shocked that I have hardly known a peaceful parent. In our years as parents, my Husband and I have used various ways to teach our babies the same things that peaceful parenting does. We have shown love and understanding. We have spoken to them gently and treated them kindly. We spend quality time doing the things they enjoy. But we have sometimes also done what we have known parents to do - the I am the parent; you are the child; be quiet and listen. This is the parenting we see everywhere, but it’s not always necessary.
What we have done is a form peaceful parenting, but we have often missed the part where you validate your child’s feelings before approaching any situation at hand. We Burundians have a hard time validating anyone. Most of our parents say things like “ukarira ndagukubita uronke ikikuriza!” (If you cry, I will beat you so you have something to cry about!) During the moments when children need us to recognize their struggles, we threaten them with violence.
I have always known something wasn’t right about this, but I have had my fair share of not-so-peaceful parenting moments when things get really overwhelming. It’s not even always related to the babies. Sometimes, my attitude towards them is completely unrelated to anything they did. Lately, I have been recognizing when my outbursts are going to happen and stopping myself ahead of time.
Sometimes, this means stepping into another room for a moment. Other times, it means taking a lot of deep breaths so that I don’t lose it on whoever is closest to me. We have always been super tight with our babies, but I recognize it takes more work to stay that way as they get older. I am hoping that building this trust now - the kind of trust where they know our arms and hearts are open no matter what - will help us stay bonded even when they are teens.
This parenting journey has already taught me so much about myself. I am not always as cool, calm, and collected as I should be. My heart has expanded farther than I ever thought possible. I want us to give our babies childhoods they will remember in a positive way. I don’t want to repay their undying love with pain that I caused. So, I have adapted peaceful parenting à la Burundaise - the one where we all live in harmony with no one yelling but also no one taking nonsense.
We are a team of five and will operate as such, each participating at his or her own capacity knowing that he or she is an important part of the family unit. This parenting style will not turn me into a perfect person. It will just help me demonstrate the respect and gentleness towards our babies as often as humanly possible. When I inevitably lose it on them, I will be prepared to take accountability for my actions, instead of blaming them for my own shortcomings as I have seen many parents do.
When it’s all said and done, I hope we will all look back at these learning years fondly.
