We were at an impasse for at least 10 minutes. We tried to wait patiently for her to be ready to leave, but she refused to buckle her car seat and physically prevented us from helping her. Finally, after at least 10 minutes, she allowed me to help her. She was tired and angry and the look in her eyes said, “Help me. I’m in here somewhere and I can’t find myself.”
Listen in on Certified Parenting by Connection instructors Susan Derby and Emily Gray Murray in this free parenting seminar on Diffusing the MINE! During which you’ll learn how to support your child in being more flexible with the give-and-take of play with friends, siblings, and peers. If you want more guides, checklists, and “How Tos” on
One mainstream response to ”attention seeking behaviour” is to ignore the bad and praise the good. But this doesn’t address the underlying upset feelings that are always beneath our child’s off-track behaviour.
Teaching kids healthy ways to deal with anger is challenging. It means caring for myself, asking for help through the hardest parts, pushing hard against the door and letting myself growl, “how dare they act like this after all I have done for them today!?!”
When you want to complain to your child about their behavior or nag them about something they’re not doing, think twice. It’s often not that useful to them.
You get to decide what the limits are, but your child is allowed to feel however they need to about that limit.
instead of telling him what to feel, I simply tried to make myself available for him and really listen. I let him take his time, while reassuring him that I was right there, fully listening to him and accepting him and his feelings just the way they were.
We started setting limits with cartoons about two years ago. My son would ask for just one more cartoon, and I would stand my ground and simply tell him, “Not now,” or, “You can watch some more tomorrow—but not now.”
Consequences? Time Out? A more conscious, peaceful approach? What really works to set the limits kids need and build cooperation at home? Join us for this free parenting call led by Certified Instructor, Kathy Gordon, and Hand in Hand Trainer, Julianne Idleman to hear about a practical new way of setting limits that you and
When a child displays off track and unreasonable behavior, they are often asking for us to bring a limit to help them stop. Bringing a limit to off track behavior can provide the emotional release children need and return them to their balanced, fun loving selves.
Spoiled Outing Syndrome. That is the technical term at Hand in Hand Parenting for this kind of phenomenon where you are having a lovely time and your kid loses it for no apparent reason.
Of course we parents worry that if we show warmth and even humour when a child is acting aggressively, he won’t learn to govern his behaviour. This concern is rooted in the idea that the child who lashes out is choosing to do so. In fact, the child who hits out feels trapped an emotional corner, and is in what Patty Wipfler calls an “emotional emergency.”
Having a power struggle at bedtime is hard on everyone. By using Playlistening, my son could save face and get to practice having some power in the situation, which small children rarely do.
When our children express emotion why is it that we want those big feelings to go away, and why is it that crying or tantrums irk us so much? A big part of it may be how our own feelings were dealt with when we were younger.
a guest post by Sarah MacLaughlin, LSW I have been in the field of education, child care, or social work for the past 20 years. I have spent my entire life working with young children and their families. This work, paired with hundreds of books, and many trainings on trauma, crisis intervention, behavior management, developmentally
Ever feel like life would be so much easier if you could just get your child to listen? Are you frustrated by seeing the same difficult behavior over and over again? Listen to this free parenting call with Certified Hand in Hand Instructor Kathy Gordon as she shares thoughtful insight and practical tools to help
When young and old babies cry it can trigger or activate our own emotional learning experiences from childhood. We feel a deep desire to know what is causing them distress and how to help. Children cry for lots of reasons, but some are particular to their stage of learning at a certain point. Here
Note: The limits expressed in this blog post represent the feelings of the author and may be different from the limits in your family. Whatever the limit may need to be, how it is set, and how you handle the way your child feels about that limit are the important thing to focus on. You