What's Your Drishti?

In yoga, a drishti is something you focus on to help you keep your balance. It could be nothing more than a scratch on the floor a few feet ahead of you. Keeping your gaze calmly focused on that tiny mark might keep you from wobbling in a posture like Tree Pose or Dancer, when you are supporting yourself on only one leg. (To see what I mean, try balancing on one leg with your eyes closed, and then try it using a drishti. Easier, right?)

Having something that works like a drishti is useful when you need to respond to your child in a consistent, unflappable way in order to change a behavior...and you are expecting push-back. Let's say your toddler has been throwing food from his high chair, usually towards the end of the meal. You talk this over with your spouse/babysitter/mom/caregiver, and together you decide that when this happens, you will all say “Looks like you're done eating” or something like that. And then you will remove your child from the high chair and put the food away. Easier said than done, right?

Of course it is. You've made a wise decision, but when you actually enact that scene, and your toddler howls with indignation, you will need to keep your balance in order to stay the course and remain unruffled. How will you stick to this plan when the going gets tough? How will you reassure yourself in the face of doubt? All those self-recriminating questions that rise up!

Am I being too hard-hearted?

What if he's still hungry?

Will he feel I don't love him?

I suggest a “verbal drishti” – something you can say to yourself. It can be a reassurance, an aspiration, an acknowledgment of process, a forecast of success. Here are examples of each of these:

A hungry child doesn't throw food. He eats the food. My child is saying, “I'm done.”

I'm teaching him good table manners, starting with this. Discipline is love.

I'm going to help him develop an appropriate way of saying “I'm done.”

He will learn that food is just for eating.

One can make up a drishti for any occasion. You put your infant down to sleep drowsy but still awake. There's some fussing while she soothes herself to sleep. It's so hard not to immediately pick her up!

She's learning to fall asleep independently. Good sleep habits are the gift of a lifetime.

Your four-year-old, who actually knows how to dress himself, dawdles in the morning and this has been making him late to daycare, which in turn makes you late to work. You tell him tomorrow he has between 7:30 to 8:00 to get dressed, and that you are both leaving at 8 sharp no matter what. Tomorrow comes and he spends most of that half hour fooling around in his room. You put him in the car with only one shoe on and still wearing his jammie tops. The remaining school clothes go in his backpack. He doesn't like this one bit and says you're a mean daddy. This hurts.

I'm teaching him time management – and that 8:00 means 8:00.

Several times this week, your second grader has left her homework at home. She called from the school office and you brought it to her. (Who are we kidding? The teacher knows she forgot it!) You have a chat with your daughter about this and tell her if she forgets her homework again, she will have to take the consequences. Two days later, you get “the call.” Despite her tears, you hold firm. You feel somewhat guilty when you hang up.

It's important for her to take personal responsibility for her obligations and her belongings.

I hope a “verbal drishti” will help stabilize your position when you're feeling wobbly!