When your Challenging Child has had some kind of outburst, it is important to take time together to process the feelings and reconnect. To do that, it is a good idea to sit together on a sofa or big enough easy chair where you can be close. It is ideal to bring your child onto your lap. No matter how old the child is! Your child should place one arm around your waist, with the hand flat on your back and the other hand flat on your waist. Your hands should be flat on your child’s back. Make loving eye contact with your child with your faces six to eight inches apart. This is a very nurturing position and wonderful for bonding.
As you engage in the process which follows, your eyes MUST be filled with love. If you cannot maintain love in your eyes, stop. This is a time for connecting and bonding, not venting of anger.
To process what happened, you will ask the five following questions. Give your child time to think and accept responsibility for whatever happened. And DO NOT ask why. There is no acceptable answer to that question.
- 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?
Be empathetic and validating. This is your opportunity to encourage your child to do handle their struggles with their feelings better the next time.
A sample conversation might look like this (thank you Nancy Thomas for the scenario).
PARENT: What happened?
CHILD: (Response must start with “I was . . .” and always use complete sentences) I was vacuuming and I banged the table with the vacuum cleaner.
PARENT: Yes you did. Good job of accepting responsibility. Give me five! What were you feeling when you did that?
CHILD: I was feeling mad because I had to vacuum instead of playing baseball.
PARENT: I bet that did make you feel mad! Baseball is a lot more fun than vacuuming! How did you handle that mad feeling? (You have validated the feeling and helped the child connect their action with the feeling.)
CHILD: I was feeling mad so I took it out on the table by hitting it with the vacuum.
PARENT: How did that work out for you?
CHILD: Not very good! Now I have to fix the scrape on the table leg and I’m missing even more baseball because I got mad and blew it!
PARENT: How do you think you might handle it better next time?
CHILD: Next time I’ll tell you how mad am or jump on the minitramp to cool down.
PARENT: That sounds like a good plan. I’ll be proud of you when you get strong enough to talk out your feelings instead of acting them out!
Of course, it is not always as easy as that. This, though, is the goal in order to serve two important purposes. First, and extremely important, your child will know that your love is still there no matter what mistake was made. The second purpose is to help your child make progress on handling feelings. This is a long process, so every opportunity that presents itself is precious.
Look forward to upcoming blog posts where I will discuss more about this method and other ways that your child can process feelings.
How do you handle it when your child acts out feelings? Please share what happens with you in the comments section below.
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Keep posting stuff like this i really like it
Thank you.
Keep posting stuff like this i really like it