Our eldest has just turned five, which marks half a decade of my partner and I discussing parenting every single day.

It started out as a sleep puzzle to solve. We would wake each morning and assess the quality of sleep, the night’s ups and downs and describe to each other the exact routine we went through at bedtime – how many pats did we give her, how loud was the shushing, how did you extract your arm slowly and gently enough not to wake her when you placed her in her bed and what gentle dance did you create to exit the room without setting off that one sneaky creaky floor board? 

Every morning we debriefed and every evening we tweaked the sleep dance accordingly. An art, a science, nothing left to chance and hope. We believe it worked and by 8 months old our very shouty, very sleep-resistant baby was sleeping 10 uninterrupted hours a night. I know this so precisely because it felt monumental at the time. One of our greatest achievements.

Five years later, we no longer talk about sleep — both the five year old and the two year old chat themselves to sleep and only wake in the morning when we open their curtains — but we still   debrief the day.

We discuss the things we were proud of and the things we were not so proud of, things we saw other parents doing and how impressive it was or strange it was, why we should try and do that in our family or why we would never. We think we parent very deliberately and it is often very tiring to talk about. 

But I’m aware our deliberate parenting style might look like quite the opposite from the outside. Instead of putting things in front of our kids and showing them how to use them, or jumping in when we overhear a voice getting raised or offering help before it’s asked for, we really want our kids to learn to figure things out on their own. Asking questions, rather than always providing answers. Over these intense five years we’ve realised that it’s okay if our kids get frustrated about something and that’s often where the best learning has happened. It’s okay if they express annoyance when something isn’t turning out the way they want it to – isn’t that so much of life?

This morning I helped the small one upstairs to where his sister is and closed the baby gate, explaining clearly that I’m going to have a shower now. The white noise of water calms my brain for a few minutes but when I turn it off Lotus is calling me. I pop my head around the door and ask what’s up. She’s upset because Finch is not listening to her, “I’m the boss of my body and I’m the boss of my room!” Okay, I’ll be there in a sec. 

By the time I dry off and wrap up and head up the stairs, calling out, ‘Are you okay, or do you need some help?’ Lotus has put some toys in Finch’s room for him and is looking him in the eye, calmly saying, ‘Next time can you just say yes or no instead of shouting at me?’ I help him get his diggers out of the cupboard and he asks her to play with him, ‘Yeah!’ she cries, ‘Yeah!’ he repeats. 

They have solved it without me and I couldn’t be more proud. What a gift for their learning and their relationship to sort these things out on their own. And what a gift for me to be given time to write while they happily play upstairs together – some complicated game with blankets and toys and nightlights and important bustling back and forth. I sit on the couch with my laptop and hear them singing happy birthday to a teddy.

Just as I’m really settling into a morning of me time and patting myself on the back for my excellent parenting skills, Lotus screams. Finch is ordered out of her room and when I get there I am too. There are big big tears and I take Finch away while Lotus screeches at the emptying room that she just needs time to herself. Humbled and wishing I had checked in on them sooner, I give Finch a cuddle and prepare snacks for them both. Maybe it’s time we all went for a walk. There’ll be lots to unpack at debrief time.