Challenging Children with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) have big feelings of anger, grief and fear resulting from the first years of their lives. To heal their hearts these feelings must be addressed. Naturally your attachment therapist will help your child to discover and manage those feelings. Therapy, though, is generally once a week. The rest of the time your child is at home with you where your child will frequently act out those feelings. Here are three more wonderful methods you can use to help your child deal with and handle their big feelings.
Feelings Journal
Every Challenging Child should be using a feelings journal every day for at least ten or fifteen minutes. This is the opportunity for your child to reflect on feelings in an age appropriate way. The youngest children, who don’t yet write, can make drawings which reflect their feelings. Pre-adolescents should be able to write a few sentences about what they have been feeling. The younger writers might write one or two sentences. As they grow older the amount of writing should be greater. Also older children should be able to show a greater understanding of their feelings. Of course any child who is new to the exercise, no matter their age, will have a difficult time with the process. It is something they must learn to do. The adolescent, who has had writing experience in school, should be able to write even more and in greater detail.
One aid for the older child can be the five questions discussed in Five Important Questions to Help Your Challenging Child Process Feelings. Before you give your child a new blank journal, write the five questions on the inside cover. Alternatively, dictate the questions to your child or she can copy them. Here are the questions:
- What happened?
- What were you feeling before you did that?
- How did you handle that feeling?
- How did that work out for you?
- How do you think you might handle it better the next time?
One last thing about the feelings journal, which may be called anything you like, such as a life journal. The journal need not be anything fancier than an inexpensive spiral bound notebook.
Physical Activity
Strictly speaking, physical activity does not involve processing of feelings. Physical activity does allow a child to release the tension of unexpressed feelings. There is any number of things a child can do to release feelings. Jumping on a mini trampoline is a great activity to release pent up feelings. You might be amazed at how long a child can continue jumping. Almost always it can be long enough to release the feelings energy. Doing physical work can be useful. Just make sure that when giving a violent or potentially violent child a physical job that you do not give him a hammer, a saw, or any other tool that can become a weapon.
Strong Sitting
Strong sitting is extremely useful for processing feelings. In fact a good strong sit is recommended before sitting with your child to review the five questions. A strong sit involves correct posture and calm breathing. Proper posture and calm breathing gets oxygen into the brain, allowing the child to reflect on feelings and her actions. There is nothing quite like sitting calmly to allow a child (or you or me for that matter) to handle and process big feelings. To learn more about strong sitting, go here.
Does your Challenging Child use a feelings journal? Do you find it helpful? Does physical activity help your child release the tension of big feelings? Do you use strong sitting to help your child deal with feelings? Please leave your comments in the comments box below.
Successfully parenting Challenging Children requires many skills we never learned parenting so-called “normal” or healthy children. Parenting books won’t give you a clue about the skills necessary to raise a Challenging Child. If you want to learn Advanced Parenting skills tailor made to your situation, please contact me by pressing on the button below and following the instructions. I would love to give you the boost you need.
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