I picked up my Niece (she's AH-mazing) from the airport last night - and was telling her about the most recent developments with Siena (we've had a couple reoccurrences of Temper Tantrums) - and during the conversation - I used a new analogy that I really liked.
Context for the conversation was around how I - as the parent - approached the Temper Tantrum (TT) issues.
There are two parts of her brain in play - the lizard brain - all raw emotions... and her thinking brain, the part that tries to regulate her emotions.
I explained - "One of the hardest switches for me as a parent was to reframe the TT. If you view it as an outburst, or defiance, or bad behavior - the approach to solving that is with consequences, rules, and punishment (all while being angry, upset, and embarrassed at the behavior)."
Instead of thinking of it that way - I view her TT's like watching a child.... drowning. There are a ton of advantages to this - the two most notable are:
1. You don't approach a drowning child with anger. You just want to save them. Seeing them in misery - underwater - struggling... it drives you towards compassion and empathy instead of anger and frustration.
2. In order to save them - it's easy to get pulled down with them. Lifeguarding (or pretty much all rescue operations) start with "The first goal is keep yourself safe - then save the victim". If you fall into their emotional trap - you are drowning too.
I love this analogy.
So - first things first - let's get on the same team:
When a TT starts - most of the time I'm part of the cause (we didn't play long enough, we left too early... I walked down the stairs first...). As long as I'm the cause, my presence is going to make it worse, not better. So - this is my hack for step 1.
Get down to her level - and empathize. She's not interested in hearing what she did wrong - she needs to be emotionally understood. So I get down to her level (sitting on the floor - hopefully I'm shorter than she is like this) and I start with "You seem really frustrated - I can only imagine how terrible it must feel to be sooooooooo frustrated."
There - now we are on the same team - so we are working together to get back to dry land.
Step 2. Hook into the thinking brain and get a couple breaths of air so we aren't drowning in emotions.
For this - I start an exploration with her to find some way to hook into her rational /regulated brain.
The other night - I was explaining that if she wanted to yell and scream - she had to do it in her room. She didn't want to do it in her room - she wanted to be out with me.
I then changed it to "you need to sit on my lap if you want to stay out here." She wanted to sit next to me instead - screaming that she didn't want ANYTHING from me.
Did you catch it?
Negotiation. She just tried to negotiate with me. That's the rational brain talking... That's my HOOK! That's our bridge - our ladder - our lifejacket.
Step 3 - expand on the hook - keep the focus on empathy and work towards full rational thought.
"Ok - you can sit out here with me... If you were putting your frustration into a cup, how big of a cup would you need - a little cup (I make a little cup with my hands) or a big cup (I make a big cup with my hands)?"
She indicates big cup. HUGE.... in fact.
How big do you think the cup should be - from the ground up - can you show me how tall the cup should be?
My idea here is to keep her integrating more rational systems focused on rational thoughts. Instead of putting it all in conversation - where it's easy to remember I'm the cause of it - I instead push her to incorporate physical systems to reinforce a thinking response.
This worked for about 30 seconds before another wave put her underwater and she started drowning again.
I tried to pull her out - telling her she should try to put her anger into balls so we could throw them away.... (it's a books she has "When I am angry..")... but to no avail. So I picked her up gently to take her back into her room because screaming at me isn't ok.
On the way into the room, she's sobbing and screaming... "I want a seaddable"
A what? Saddle? An Apple....?
Normally I'd dismiss it as gibberish and put her down for another round... but we stuck it out.
"I want a Sad Ball"
Oh... oh wow. Perfect - let's find a sad ball!!! So we found a sad ball - and she gave it to me so I could be sad instead of her. She handed me the ball and I lost my mind.
Ohhhhhhh!!!! I'm SOOOOOOOOO sad... and frustrated. and mad. OMG why is this happening to me - I don't want to be sad and angry!!! waaaaaahhhhhhhh!
She then reached over and said, "Daddy, don't be sad - let me protect you." And she took my sad ball away and threw it across the room.
At this point - she was rescuing me. :)
We found a few more sad balls in the room and then emerged... back on dry land. My happy, adorable, sweet little girl had returned.
Anyway - hope this is interesting / useful to you (the reader). Let me know if I missed anything or could do a better job explaining something.
-A work in progress - but a Dad who sees drowning more than defiance... :)
Context for the conversation was around how I - as the parent - approached the Temper Tantrum (TT) issues.
There are two parts of her brain in play - the lizard brain - all raw emotions... and her thinking brain, the part that tries to regulate her emotions.
I explained - "One of the hardest switches for me as a parent was to reframe the TT. If you view it as an outburst, or defiance, or bad behavior - the approach to solving that is with consequences, rules, and punishment (all while being angry, upset, and embarrassed at the behavior)."
Instead of thinking of it that way - I view her TT's like watching a child.... drowning. There are a ton of advantages to this - the two most notable are:
1. You don't approach a drowning child with anger. You just want to save them. Seeing them in misery - underwater - struggling... it drives you towards compassion and empathy instead of anger and frustration.
2. In order to save them - it's easy to get pulled down with them. Lifeguarding (or pretty much all rescue operations) start with "The first goal is keep yourself safe - then save the victim". If you fall into their emotional trap - you are drowning too.
I love this analogy.
So - first things first - let's get on the same team:
When a TT starts - most of the time I'm part of the cause (we didn't play long enough, we left too early... I walked down the stairs first...). As long as I'm the cause, my presence is going to make it worse, not better. So - this is my hack for step 1.
Get down to her level - and empathize. She's not interested in hearing what she did wrong - she needs to be emotionally understood. So I get down to her level (sitting on the floor - hopefully I'm shorter than she is like this) and I start with "You seem really frustrated - I can only imagine how terrible it must feel to be sooooooooo frustrated."
There - now we are on the same team - so we are working together to get back to dry land.
Step 2. Hook into the thinking brain and get a couple breaths of air so we aren't drowning in emotions.
For this - I start an exploration with her to find some way to hook into her rational /regulated brain.
The other night - I was explaining that if she wanted to yell and scream - she had to do it in her room. She didn't want to do it in her room - she wanted to be out with me.
I then changed it to "you need to sit on my lap if you want to stay out here." She wanted to sit next to me instead - screaming that she didn't want ANYTHING from me.
Did you catch it?
Negotiation. She just tried to negotiate with me. That's the rational brain talking... That's my HOOK! That's our bridge - our ladder - our lifejacket.
Step 3 - expand on the hook - keep the focus on empathy and work towards full rational thought.
"Ok - you can sit out here with me... If you were putting your frustration into a cup, how big of a cup would you need - a little cup (I make a little cup with my hands) or a big cup (I make a big cup with my hands)?"
She indicates big cup. HUGE.... in fact.
How big do you think the cup should be - from the ground up - can you show me how tall the cup should be?
My idea here is to keep her integrating more rational systems focused on rational thoughts. Instead of putting it all in conversation - where it's easy to remember I'm the cause of it - I instead push her to incorporate physical systems to reinforce a thinking response.
This worked for about 30 seconds before another wave put her underwater and she started drowning again.
I tried to pull her out - telling her she should try to put her anger into balls so we could throw them away.... (it's a books she has "When I am angry..")... but to no avail. So I picked her up gently to take her back into her room because screaming at me isn't ok.
On the way into the room, she's sobbing and screaming... "I want a seaddable"
A what? Saddle? An Apple....?
Normally I'd dismiss it as gibberish and put her down for another round... but we stuck it out.
"I want a Sad Ball"
Oh... oh wow. Perfect - let's find a sad ball!!! So we found a sad ball - and she gave it to me so I could be sad instead of her. She handed me the ball and I lost my mind.
Ohhhhhhh!!!! I'm SOOOOOOOOO sad... and frustrated. and mad. OMG why is this happening to me - I don't want to be sad and angry!!! waaaaaahhhhhhhh!
She then reached over and said, "Daddy, don't be sad - let me protect you." And she took my sad ball away and threw it across the room.
At this point - she was rescuing me. :)
We found a few more sad balls in the room and then emerged... back on dry land. My happy, adorable, sweet little girl had returned.
Anyway - hope this is interesting / useful to you (the reader). Let me know if I missed anything or could do a better job explaining something.
-A work in progress - but a Dad who sees drowning more than defiance... :)
Comments
Post a Comment