Hand in Hand Parenting https://www.handinhandparenting.org/ Supporting parents when parenting gets hard Tue, 06 Feb 2024 03:33:15 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://www.handinhandparenting.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/cropped-hihlogo-100x100.png Hand in Hand Parenting https://www.handinhandparenting.org/ 32 32 183205826 What if Consistency is not Vital? https://www.handinhandparenting.org/2024/02/consistency-is-not-vital/ Mon, 05 Feb 2024 15:00:48 +0000 https://www.handinhandparenting.org/?p=61935 Consistency is not vital Can you believe this?  This nugget of wisdom is perhaps the most important thing that I learned when I first came across Hand in Hand Parenting. So much of the advice about how to handle a range of parenting challenges, and about limit setting in general, suggests that it’s super important […]

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Consistency is not vital
Can you believe this?  This nugget of wisdom is perhaps the most important thing that I learned when I first came across Hand in Hand Parenting.

So much of the advice about how to handle a range of parenting challenges, and about limit setting in general, suggests that it’s super important to “hold the line” and remain consistent in the limits we set.  And when we can’t manage this, we often feel bad about our parenting.


The importance of being “seen”

In reality, we change our minds, and our plans, more often than we realise.  Probably several times a day.  Our children are watching, and they know this, and in general they can make sense of it.  It’s when we are emotionally inconsistent that they get confused.

What is definitely needed, for things to go well, is your consistent warmth, approval and connection with your child.  Difficulties arise where a child can’t count on a deep sense of connection with, and being “seen” by, their parent (or other primary caregiver).  It is this which allows a child to work through the big and the small challenges that life throws at them, giving them resilience and flexibility.

And limit setting, too, does not go well when a sense of connection is absent, or is ruptured, or running low in your relationship with your child.

 

You aren’t trying to teach

We parents worry!  In particular, we worry that our children will “get the wrong idea”.  Or we assume that the problem is that they don’t understand what is necessary.  So we start to explain, instruct, and teach.

However, our children are incredibly good at learning – they are almost learning machines.  They learn to speak – sometimes in several languages – to walk, to interact socially, mostly without explicit instruction.  Most of the rules of life, and of your family – the things which are important to you – they have already learned by closely watching how you function.  Your child already knows most of the things that you think you need to “teach” her.

 

Emotional tensions (feelings) get in the way

Why then are our children unable to act on the basis of what they already know.  How come they can’t find workable solutions to the problems they encounter? It’s not because they don’t understand (mostly).

It is because they have accumulated emotional tensions.  Feelings get in the way of them connecting with their understanding.  Feelings get in the way of remembering what is important.  Even if your child does remember, feelings will prevent them from caring.

“Off-track” behaviours are a sign of this.  These are the times when our child is having trouble with a transition, or is resisting something which needs to be done, or is being hurtful to others, or is insisting rigidly that something be done, or not be done, a certain way.  These are the ways that our child tells us that they are in trouble – emotional trouble.[i]

At these times it is important that we respond to our children.  Ignoring the “unwanted behaviour” isn’t going to help them much. It leaves them alone with the problem which they’ve already told you, via their behaviour, that they are unable to resolve.

 

The “cognitive framework”

When we respond, we often respond from a “cognitive framework” for understanding the difficulty.  We assume that the reason our child is off-track is because they don’t understand.  So we respond with an appeal to their “thinking mind” – with words, concepts, explanations and descriptions of principles (“We don’t hit each other in our family.”, “things go better if you share”, “you need to eat vegetables to stay healthy”, “if you don’t clean your teeth they will rot”).

Unfortunately, our children’s “off-track” behaviour has already shown us that they are not in their “thinking mind”.  Words don’t work so well when someone is not thinking.  The problem is not cognitive, it’s emotional. They are in their “feeling mind”.

 

Reach, not teach

When our child has shown us, by their behaviour, that they are “off track” and in trouble, we need to reach for our child, to reconnect.  Sometimes, a warm offer of connection will “jump” our child onto a different track, and their resistance melts into co-operation.  The more playfully you can do this, the better. Playfulness is deeply connecting, and is an antidote to the weary, tense tone that we adults often adopt when course-correcting our child.

 

The ”emotional framework”

When we bring a limit with warmth and gentleness, we are offering connection.  If the warmth we bring isn’t enough to resolve the difficulty, then a firmer (but still warm) limit may work to bring feelings to the surface.  Remember, these feelings are the emotional tensions that are driving our child’s off-track behaviour, and they will be better off without them.

Reaching for our children in this way, we are using an “emotional framework” for understanding the difficulty and how to respond.

 

Off-track: The challenges of everyday life

Our children’s off-track behaviour tends to present in two broad categories.

The first is to do with the challenges of daily life.  These can be as small as your child not wanting to put on their socks, or as large and important as your child not wanting to be buckled into their car seat.  It’s safe to assume that there is usually some kind of emotional tension causing, or contributing to, the snarl in the routine, power struggle, or the safety issue.

In addition, other feelings (possibly about things which are not directly related) can “piggy back” on the difficulty.  Humans don’t like to be carrying emotional tension, as it fouls up our functioning.  So we are always looking for opportunities to offload those tensions – almost any excuse will do.  The teacher was mean in class?  Then homework, or chores, or sharing, might become difficult.  Mummy was working late last night and missed the bed-time routine?  Then getting dressed the next morning or eating breakfast might turn into a struggle, or being unable to play co-operatively, or hitting other children,.

 

Off-track: Keeping feelings at bay

The other “driver” of unworkable behaviours will be strategies which your child has adopted to squash down hard feelings.  We all do it – when you feel upset or agitated, what do you reach for?  My go-to is caffeine, which I’m pretty sure I was consuming in significant quantities in the womb!  These are the things we do to avoid feelings – watching TV when we should be doing something else, eating, even exercising can be a way for some people to avoid feelings.

These strategies also extend to things we avoid, and things we must have.  So your child won’t happily turn off the light at night because he is scared of the dark, or doesn’t want to visit a friend because she’s scared of the cat, or won’t join the swimming class because she’s scared of the water.  As for “must haves” many a parent has developed sophisticated work-arounds to make sure that thing is always available – purchasing two teddies, in case one gets lost, or washing and drying blankie while our child is at day care, because bedtime is impossible without it.

We try to “tamp down” feelings because no-one was able to listen to us about them when they first got laid in by some stressful experience.  So for a child, sucking on the pacifier (or dummy as we call it here in Australia) may work to keep feelings at bay.  Extending the bedtime routine may be an attempt to put off the feelings of separation which come up for many children when they finally have to sleep.

These strategies probably come in handy when there’s no-one to listen to us, but unfortunately the feelings don’t go away, they just go underground.  There, they tend to accumulate, and it gets harder to stop them from bubbling up.  So the bedtime routine gets longer and longer, or your child seems to be unable to function unless they have their special soft toy with them.  In general, we tend to accommodate or work around these “preferences” and “needs” in the interests of keeping the routine moving along.  But, more often than not, at some point, the workaround gets to be harder than dealing with the underlying upset.

 

Upsets are part of the process

It turns out that if we interrupt our child’s “off-track” behaviours, there’s a reasonable chance that feelings will erupt (and so might ours, but that is another article!).  The good news is that in this “emotional framework”, upsets are often the pathway to co-operation and not a sign of something bad.  Tears release grief; sweating, shaking and angry words release fears; and laughter releases lighter fears and embarrassments.  Your child will be able to make more workable decisions after they have had a chance to offload these feelings with a good listener.  They will be able to think better.

 

Setting Limits brings up feelings

When there is a safety issue (in the category of everyday challenges) , or when you’ve got sick of the drama that ensues when blankie is lost (in category of feeling-squashers), or when the bedtime routine is exhausting you (could be either category of problem), it’s time to set a limit. The limit works, effectively, to drive the feelings to the surface, where they can be offloaded.  The real purpose and power of the limit is to bring those feelings to the surface by placing a kind of road-block in the way of the behaviour.  An upset is a sign that a limit is doing exactly what it is designed to do.

 

It depends on the circumstances

Knowing this, you can make a judgement call.  Are you ready to listen when you’ve brought the limit?  Or do you have the energy to divert the difficulty more gently with play?  Or do you leave things as they are – a bit off-track for the time being – because you know you can’t handle the upset right now.  Perhaps you are tired and worn out.  Or grandma is over for dinner and she finds big upsets distressing.  It makes sense to be flexible about this sort of thing.

However, if you are always putting off the upset, then you are probably not doing your child, or yourself, a favour.  The feelings which are driving your child’s off-track behaviour today are probably giving them trouble in other areas of their functioning.  And sometimes the load of feelings is so great that they can’t be tamped down, soothed away or distracted from, or the off-track behaviour is a genuine question of safety.  At these times, you don’t have the choice but to bring a limit and then listen as best you can.

 

Flexibility is important

Let’s think about the challenge of getting your child to sleep in their own bed[ii].  Perhaps your child is adamant that they should sleep with you.  If you propose that they sleep alone, it will likely bring up big feelings for your child.  Those feelings are probably about separation, but could be about anything.  Feelings of sadness, frustration, boredom or grief may “piggyback” along for the ride.  Any limit may serve to bring those feelings up to the surface, to be offloaded and left behind.

In this process, you are not trying to “teach them to sleep” (which might require consistency), but instead you are aiming to drain away the feelings which stop them from sleeping.  Every little bit of draining you can do will help.  The feelings which erupt are exactly the feelings which have been making it difficult for them to get to sleep, or stay asleep.  Listening to these feelings as they offload is the key to progress.

 

Pace Yourself

It is important that you approach this project at a pace that is manageable for you and your child, and at a pace that maintains your child’s trust in you and sense of connection with you.[iii]

Maybe you have listened for a while and can listen no longer.  Or you now need to get to sleep yourself.  Or you can tell that you are beginning to lose patience and are getting irritated, or worse.  Then it’s OK to bring the child back to your bed, or give them back their dummy.  They will probably stop crying, and you, and they, may be able to get some sleep.

You are unlikely to have completely drained the bucket of fears that are keeping them awake.  But I’d bet money that if your child has not finished, and still has a load of feelings in their emotional backpack, they will give you another chance, sooner rather than later, to set a limit and listen to them until they are done.

 

Consistent connection…not taking a “hard-line”

Focussing on consistency has your attention on the wrong solution (teaching/instruction/information and advice-giving) based on an incorrect (or at least insufficient) understanding of the problem (that the root of the problem is cognitive).

In a way, a focus on consistency simply does not give you enough room to move.

The “ emotional framework” puts your focus on connection with your child, and on taking opportunities to set limits when your child is off-track, in order to pull up, and release the feelings which are getting in the way of good thinking and co-operation.

Chances are, to keep doing that well, you’ll need to find someone who can listen to you – after all, your child isn’t the only one with feelings!

Go well, stay connected, and pace yourselves.  Parenting is a long-term project.

 

Not sure where to start with applying HandinHand in your family?  Tried something and it didn’t seem to work? Madeleine loves to help: why not book a Free 20 Minute Consultation, and she can direct you to the best resources and support.

[i] In talking about limit setting, I am assuming that what you are asking of your child is reasonable and workable.  We need to check – with our Listening Partners, or with someone with whom we can talk about the details and challenges of parenting.  Ask “Is my limit reasonable?” and “Am I going to be able to hold this limit (i.e.  enforce it)”.  Expecting a two year old to get through the supermarket without touching anything, for instance, is not reasonable or workable.  Insisting on an early bedtime with an older toddler when they napped for several hours in the day may not be reasonable or workable.  Expecting your older child not to scroll on his phone at night may not be reasonable or workable, given how addictive digital devices can be.

[ii] Just to be clear, I don’t have a “position” on sleeping arrangements.  I’m a fan of “musical beds” – such that everyone is sleeping in a bed big enough for them to sleep there reasonably comfortably with someone else if necessary.  Who sleeps where depends on what is going on in your household at any particular point in time.  That said, if your child’s insistence on sleeping with you is wearing you out, then it might be time to embark on the emotional project of helping them relax about where and who they sleep with.  On the other side of the project, they may, or may not, sometimes sleep here, and other times sleep there, depending on what works best for everyone, but the choice won’t be rigid.

[iii] To bolster your child’s sense of connection with you, especially when you notice that you are having to set lots of limits, it’s good to make sure that you are doing plenty of Special Time with your child.   This is the Listening Tool that gives your child a deep sense that you are on their side.  They will “borrow” from this when you set a limit – at which time they are probably convinced that you are not on their side!

 

 

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Attacher son enfant dans son siège-auto : fini les conflits ! https://www.handinhandparenting.org/2024/01/attacher-son-enfant-dans-son-siege-auto-fini-les-conflits/ Mon, 22 Jan 2024 16:42:13 +0000 https://www.handinhandparenting.org/?p=61754 Tu connais peut-être ce moment de lutte quotidienne quand tu essaies d’attacher ton enfant dans son siège-auto. Si tu en as marre des conflits, découvre comment mettre fin à cette bataille. Je décris dans ce récit comment je m'y suis prise avec ma grande de 6 ans, en espérant que cela t'inspirera !

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child car seat travel

Attacher ma fille dans son siège-auto : une lutte au quotidien

Ma fille de six ans traversait une période où elle voulait contrôler tout, que ce soit qui s'asseyait d'abord à table, qui sortait en premier de la maison, qui atteignait la voiture en premier, et bien plus encore. Elle était en plein dans une sorte de projet émotionnel qui avait été déclenché par des événements difficiles qu'elle avait vécus. Je savais que chacun de nous a en lui un processus naturel de guérison, et si je pouvais bien l'écouter, nous pourrions surmonter son besoin de tout contrôler. Cependant, c'était surtout dans la voiture que cela devenait impossible à gérer pour moi.

D'abord, elle refusait de monter dans son siège auto. Ensuite, elle refusait d'attacher sa ceinture ou de me laisser le faire. Puis, une fois attachée, parfois en moins de 30 secondes, elle défaisait à nouveau sa ceinture. La lutte de pouvoir était continue. Il y a eu quelques moments où je la forçais dans son siège et la menaçais si elle défaisait la ceinture. Je n'étais pas fière de ces moments, mais je me sentais complètement impuissante. J'étais au bout du rouleau et j'essayais tout ce qui me passait par la tête. Cependant, la contraindre et la menacer ne faisaient qu'intensifier nos luttes de pouvoir. La goutte d'eau a été quand elle a commencé à se détacher alors que je conduisais sur l'autoroute à 130 km/heure. J’ai eu envie de hurler et j’ai eu des idées assez noires qui m’ont traversé l’esprit. Il était temps que je m’y prenne autrement. Ça ne pouvait plus continuer ainsi.

D'abord, j'ai décidé de prendre soin de moi pour réfléchir à ce problème de siège auto

Pour commencer à changer, j'ai commencé par moi-même. Je me suis organisée des temps d’écoute en prenant des rendez-vous avec plusieurs Partenaires d'écoute. J'ai pu leur parler de mes difficultés avec ma fille que je trouvais très têtue. Je transpirais en rejouant à voix haute avec mon Partenaire d'écoute ma colère et ma frustration face aux comportements de “petit dictateur” de ma fille. Je tremblais en me permettant de revisiter les moments où je m'étais sentie impuissante, seule et contrôlée en tant que jeune enfant. J'ai pleuré à propos des moments où les gens me regardaient avec ce regard qui signifiait : “Contrôle cet enfant”. J'ai même crié : “Je ne sais pas quoi faire !” Mes Partenaires d'écoute ont continué à croire en moi. Ils m'ont dit que je trouverais une solution même si je pensais que je faisais quelque chose de mal et qu'il y avait quelque chose qui clochait chez ma fille. J'ai même ri de la façon dont cette situation nous avait tous deux poussées au bord de la folie, mais en même temps, j'avais vraiment peur de ce qu'elle devenait.

Après plusieurs séances avec différents Partenaires d'écoute, j'ai commencé à remarquer que je me détendais un peu autour de cette question et des sentiments oppressants de douleur et d'anxiété. Je savais aussi que me sentir plus détendue me permettrait de réfléchir davantage à une solution. Ma fille réagit très bien à l'outil de Jeu-écoute, alors je me suis concentrée sur cet outil particulier de Hand in Hand. J'ai eu quelques idées et j'ai décidé de les essayer.

Quand l'utilisation du Jeu-écoute permet de tout changer

La fois d’après, quand nous sommes arrivés sur ma place de parking à la maison, j'ai attrapé la boucle de ma ceinture de sécurité et j'ai crié : “Oh, je ne peux pas défaire ma boucle. Je suis coincée !” Tout en me penchant, en prétendant essayer de sortir de ma ceinture de sécurité, j'ai crié : “À l'aide ! À l'aide !”

Ma fille a immédiatement ri et a sauté en avant pour m'aider. “Ouf, je ne voudrais certainement pas être coincée dans la voiture. Je sentirais mauvais après quelques jours.”

Le lendemain matin, alors que nous partions pour l'école un peu plus tôt et que les enfants étaient attachés dans leurs sièges-auto, je me suis assise et j'ai dit en faisant semblant de paniquer : “Ma boucle ne fonctionne pas, je ne peux pas m'attacher.”

Encore une fois, ma fille a ri, a défait rapidement sa ceinture de sécurité et m'a attaché.

J'ai ajouté : “Oh merci”, avec un ton du genre, “Tu m'as sauvée !”

Sans dire un mot, elle s'est assise et s'est attachée. Avant qu'elle ait fini, j'ai défait ma ceinture de sécurité et j'ai prétendu m'emmêler avec elle. “Oh, à l'aide, ma ceinture de sécurité s'est détachée et maintenant elle s’emmêle.” Je luttai massivement comme si une pieuvre m'attaquait.

Ma fille est venue à ma rescousse à nouveau avec beaucoup de rires et de joie. Elle a repris le contrôle de ma ceinture de sécurité et m'a attaché à nouveau.

Nous avons continué à jouer plusieurs variations de ces jeux au cours des deux jours suivants. Ma fille n'a plus jamais eu de problème avec sa ceinture de sécurité. Elle ne l'a jamais enlevée lorsque nous étions en voiture et s'attacher en voiture n’a plus du tout été un problème.

À toi de jouer !

Voilà, tu as maintenant quelques astuces simples pour mettre fin aux batailles fréquentes quand il faut accrocher ton enfant dans son siège-auto. En intégrant le jeu-écoute, tu transformes ces moments de stress en des occasions de connexion avec ton enfant. N'oublie pas que le Partenariat d'écoute, en parlant de tes propres défis et en recevant un soutien compatissant, peut-être un allié puissant dans ce processus. Alors, dis adieu aux conflits et c’est parti pour des trajets en voitures mille fois moins stressants !

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Seven Surprise Ways To Stop Tantrums In Their Tracks https://www.handinhandparenting.org/2023/10/stop-tantrums/ Mon, 30 Oct 2023 01:18:42 +0000 https://www.handinhandparenting.org/?p=42597 It seems like my son has been advocating for himself since the minute he was born. If he wanted to feed, he wanted to feed now!  As a toddler, if he wanted my attention he’d climb up on my lap and turn my face away from whoever I was talking to.  If he did not […]

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It seems like my son has been advocating for himself since the minute he was born. If he wanted to feed, he wanted to feed now! 

As a toddler, if he wanted my attention he’d climb up on my lap and turn my face away from whoever I was talking to. 

If he did not want to go to preschool – and that was often – he would stall from the minute he woke up. 

And on those days?

He would not eat breakfast. 

He would not stop playing. 

He would not get dressed. 

He would not put on a coat or carry a bag. 

He would not leave the house. 

And he would not, no, he definitely would not, climb the stairs up to pre-school. 

You can guess where all of this ended? A raging tantrum or meltdown.

And all the while I heard my dad’s voice in my mind: “Just make him do it.”

Oh Dad, how I tried. 

I was doing all the things to stop tantrums—but nothing worked

When I looked online I read that a good strategy to stop tantrums was to ignore them. As in walk the other way. Maybe it works for some kids. But not mine. In fact, ignoring his protests and defiant “No's” seemed to fire up his fury. 

So, I tried to ignore them other ways. I tried to stop tantrums from happening at all. First I tried to go with his flow, thinking that would make everything rosy.

If he wanted toast instead of oatmeal, I made it. If he wanted to leave without a jacket, sure. If he wanted to stuff his bag with 3000 legos, two fat, heavy books, his dinosaur stuffy and his favorite pen (which I would have to lug around for him), go for it. I just wanted things to run smoothly – even if I was fuming inside. 

But it would take an age to do anything. I got annoyed and lectured, while he covered his ears, or yelled. 

If that didn’t work, I tried fake threats. I'd say things like, “I’ll have to call your teacher and you can tell her why you don’t want to come.”

Naturally he soon found out I was bluffing!

After setting limit after limit on whatever I wanted to be done and seeing it ignored, I became a champion barterer. I exchanged cookies for goodwill. I exchanged no showers for a smooth bedtime. I exchanged more time for eventually leaving without any big upsets.

Seriously,  “Just one more minute and then we have to leave,” became a regular mantra. 

After that, I resorted to yelling and timeouts.

But honestly? Nothing worked.

 

“I burned with embarrassment…”

My son's frequent response was to lay on the floor shouting, crying, and refusing to move. His tantrums seemed epic. There felt no way to stop them.

We regularly got to the point where all I felt I could do was peel his rigid back off the floor, scoop him up into my arms and carry him howling to where we needed to go. 

I burned with embarrassment. I walked with my head down trying to avoid all the judgy looks I imagined going on around me.

The only upside, it seemed to me, was that I developed some seriously sculpted arms, because after not too long I found myself carrying my big, strong, rambunctious three-year-old everywhere. 

But it was clear.

Although my arms were strong, my resolve was weak. 

He ruled the roost while I felt I had zero control over anything. It soon seemed like the whole family was skipping to his beat. 

Any parenting expert would tell you that this was not a good place to be. A 3-year-old cannot handle that kind of power. And my heart grew heavy when I thought of all the years of parenting still to come. I imagined him as a 15-year-old, lying beneath his covers, refusing to get up and go to school while I stood by powerless. 

I knew I needed to change things, but how? It felt like I'd tried all the parenting tips and tricks ever dreamed up. 

I had no real clue how to make a meaningful change that would actually work. 

Until I discovered a whole new way to respond to his behavior. 

Why doing these things won't stop tantrums

By toddlerhood most kids are experimenting with boundaries. It comes with a natural desire to exert independence. And testing boundaries is good, as children begin to learn what happens as a result. Seen this way, testing limits is quite a grand experiment in cause and effect. 

But, it can be frustrating, especially in toddlerhood, when some children test boundaries thick and fast. 

And yet, saying no all the time can make us parents feel like the fun-sponges of childhood. Who wants to be a fun-sponge?!!

We may also second-guess our decisions. Would an extra cookie really hurt? What’s five more minutes anyway?

Most of us also felt the wrath of an angry adult when we were kids. It hurt. It felt unfair. Like we didn’t get a say. As adults we vowed to respond to our kids in a kinder way. But how does that work if they won’t listen?

The hidden costs when parents avoid tantrums

The thing is, by saying yes, I was trying to avoid upset. I was trying to keep things happy and jolly for both of us.

But this was dancing on eggshells.

By saying yes like I did, or by giving so many choices, by trying to placate or even barter, I was teaching my son that if he negotiated enough, my “no,” would become a “yes.”

It could happen fast, or it could happen later. But soon he knew. If he cried, screamed, got angry or cried I'd try everything I could to fix things – until I lost it. 

As Hand in Hand’s founder Patty Wipfler explains in her post, When Your Kids Will Do Anything To Get Attention, the child becomes the centre of things. The squeaky wheel who “uses the threat of a disappointment, a fight, a whine, a descent into desperation, or an explosion that, on some days, can be triggered by any tiny thing.”

It sets you up for regular daily battles. It’s exhausting.

And although I felt like I could stop tantrums by giving in, I soon saw that the tantrum didn't disappear. Instead, we'd battle over a million other little things until one of us got angry, screamed and cried. 

Which is why learning that tantrums are a good thing was a monumental mindshift.

Tantrums are good for your child. Here’s why…

In an effort to keep things less explosive, I'd been running from tantrums. An effort that returned dismal results. Hand in Hand Parenting advises welcoming them. 

Crying and tantruming are a natural way for kids to offload emotions and feelings. As natural as their desire to test limits. 

Life can feel a tough and daunting place for children, just as it can for us. Toddlers face many frustrations and fears – from eating, to dressing, to friendships, to play and new experiences. All of that fear and frustration can mount up in a child's body. It can be too much to process. Overwhelming. Challenging behavior is a first signal that your child may have feelings bothering them. After this, it shows up in crying, upset, tantrums and meltdowns.

Crying releases the child of these tensions.

When a cry finishes naturally, what follows is often a period of calm because the fear and frustration has been released. 

In fact, listening to your child when they let out their anger, tears and frustration can be helpful in many ways. It can:

  • Help validate a child’s feelings: When we can listen to a tantrum, we show our children that all feelings are valid. Sadness is just as valid as happiness, anger is just as valid as joy. (This felt pretty radical to me, because I grew up in a family where these emotions were not welcome). 
  • Help a child regulate their emotions: Welcoming tantrums gives kids good opportunities to learn how to self-regulate, to notice how situations or circumstances cause them to feel things, how that feels in their bodies, and to work through the uncomfortable feelings. 
  • Build a strong connection between you and your child: Getting comfortable with tantrums shows your child that you are there for them through thick and thin. 
  • Demonstrate empathy and acceptance: When we can treat kids and all their feelings with empathy and acceptance, they will grow up to do the same for themselves and those around them. I think we’d all agree that the world could use more folks who know how to handle emotions. 
  • Build resilience: When you stay close and calm with a tantruming child, you hold the trust that they will work through the emotion and come out feeling brighter and freer. They learn that they control their feelings, not the other way around. When feelings scare them, they can fight the fear and do things anyway. 

Thing was, because I had tried to stop tantrums, this process was halted.

By the time I had placated, bribed and bargained, I was in no shape mentally to listen to a big cry. Very often, I was also out of time. By scooping my child up and carting him around, I forced him to do what was necessary, but did not recognise or respond to the frustration and genuine upset behind the behavior. 

“How can listening stop tantrums?” I asked myself…

So how do you actually pull off this tantrum-welcoming, trust-and-resilience-building feat?

You’ll know days when tantrums are brewing.

These are days when everything seems a bit more difficult for your child. When they find it hard to focus on a task. They can’t play. They often refuse to do what you ask. 

To test the waters, it can be helpful to say yes once to when they refuse or get grumpy. (Just once is fine!). 

Say your child refuses to wear the shirt you picked out. They want a different one. 

Try saying yes just that one time. 

If your child puts on the new shirt and moves on happily, all good. 

If your child puts on the new shirt but continues whining or gets defiant you know it's time to set a limit around the next thing that comes up. Very often you can expect some strong feelings from your child about your limit. 

A framework for setting limits your child will listen to

 

This is Hand in Hand’s framework for setting a limit. 

Listen:

Stop, listen and think. Before you act, think about what might be causing your child’s dissatisfaction. This includes the part I just described – is your child satisfied after you say yes once? 

Or, is what you have asked them to do beyond their ability? For instance, waiting silently in line for too long? Could you lighten things up by playing a hand game or have a staring contest. 

Are you exhausted? Are you thinking about saying no to something you might usually say yes to because you don’t have the energy, like play or getting paints out? It’s fine to change up your usual rules and standards, but explain why, and that your decision is based on your needs. This may or may not be acceptable to your child. (You’ll soon find out!).

If you can’t figure things out, try asking your child what’s happening for them. Get on their eye level and ask why they are yelling or are unwilling to share. Listening to their reply can help your child offload their feelings before their behavior escalates. 

And if they are already yelling, raging, or loudly refusing, you already know. It’s time to move to a limit.

Limit:

Before, this would be the moment I'd angrily insist my son get his shoe on (which he’d throw at me). Or I'd tell him off for holding us up. It got me nowhere. So I learned to bring the limit calmly. To do this, act first and talk second. Move in close. Hold a hand that is about to throw a shoe. Make eye contact. Bring the limit. 

“No. We don't throw shoes.” 

Keep it brief, keep it light, keep it firm. You can even say it sing-song. And then keep quiet. Your child’s feelings are likely to bubble up right about now. 

Listen:

Tune into your child and listen. You really do not need to say much other than, “I know it’s hard,” or “I’m right here.”

You may notice your child squirm, sweat, or struggle to run away. Try to stay close and kind. Taking this time just to listen will help your child recover and return to a more even state later, but try not to rush for calm to return. 

Sometimes you will rotate through this listen, limit, listen cycle again, or even a few times. You will see your child naturally come to a calm state after they work off the feelings and emotions, and sometimes that can seem to happen fast while sometimes it takes a while. 

What I've noticed is that moving in and starting this process the minute I see my son going off-track is most helpful. When I set the limit early, I side-step a day full of complaints and whining, a day where my son refuses request after request. 

When I remind myself the tantrum is helpful, when I breathe, take a minute to engage, and then listen, we often have a great day. 

My son, happy and light, laughs a lot on those days. He comes out with bucketloads of knowledge bombs with facts and stats I never even knew he knew. And, he actually becomes very co-operative. 

Resisting crying can sometimes feel easier

Even though I know the healing power of a good cry, I still resist my child’s tantrums some days. I tell myself I can’t listen to anything, let alone welcome his upset. 

Part of me wonders if it’s because my mind reverts back to those early days. I still expect a day full of battles and I say yes more than once – until I catch myself. 

Other times I just feel tired.

Sometimes it’s because I still misinterpret his behaviors. I’ve noticed that he resists tantrums, maybe because he senses I am reluctant to welcome them. Instead, he asks for snacks, more TV, or for me to look at him doing whatever he’s doing. Seen from the outside, it’s obvious. He’s seeking connection. But caught in the moment I still often overlook these small yet insistent requests.

On days when I start to feel annoyed and can’t quite put my finger on why, or days I know I don’t want to listen, I ask myself questions like these:

  • Has my child resisted me more than three times? I wonder what’s going on?
  • Is my child going through anything new or different that may have caused extra fear or frustration?
  • Have I set a limit using the listen-limit-listen approach, or have I given a half-hearted no. This is when I don’t make eye contact, or I say a no from the kitchen when my child is in the living room.
  • Am I feeling too tired or drained to deal with crying and upset right now? This is ok, by the way. I’ve found a few days can pass and then my son might cry after we’ve had a good time together – when I am way more open to listening. Kids can be so smart that way. 
  • Am I very involved in a current or planned task, so my child has not fully been able to show or release feelings? Just noticing this sometimes allows me to step away for a few minutes to be with him. 
  • Have I played, laughed or connected with my child recently? See below for why this is useful. 
  • Do I have negative feelings about my child’s defiance, whining, or upset or around the subject that may be causing their behavior?

The questioning process allows you to catch up with yourself and check in with your child in the moment, and is often the time I go to him and set a limit. You may also uncover habits or patterns that are helpful for the future. 

For instance, I always found listening to “It’s not fair,” whining tricky because those words were banned in the house I grew up in. It’s hard to listen and be empathetic when you were not listened to, and I'll hear myself lecturing rather than listening.

Another time, I noticed my son’s defiance would flair if he felt rushed. He needed more space and time than I did to get something done. This was at odds with my style, which is often rushed and last minute. “Quickly popping out” for milk could easily become an epic battle of wills until I realised that this easy task for me was actually difficult for him. 

How Good Planning Can Help Stop Tantrums

If I wanted him to tidy crayons away before dinner, he needed to know early on that I expected that – not when I was carrying plates of piping hot food to a messy table. (You have no idea how many times it took me doing that before the realisation clicked!).

These days I try to plan better, but also to listen more if he has feelings about being rushed. 

One great tool for de-mystifying seemingly surprise acts of defiance and upset was in my Listening Partnership. This is where another parent and I listen to each other over the phone.  Having them listen while I got to muse, wonder and complain about things (like how unfair it felt to me to have to plan), definitely eased the negative charge I had and helped me stay calmer and more laid-back when the same thing happened later at home. 

Incidentally, I’ve also noticed his “It’s not fair,” quickly gives way to a requested task getting completed if I lightly shrug and give an empathetic nod. Hoorah!

This was of setting limits has, for us, been instrumental.

We do not fight like we did. I don't see so nearly as much resistance. Limits are not associated with anger. They help us get more done. In fact, I actually need to set limits a lot less.

These six other ideas stop tantrums before they start

 

stop tantrums before they happen with these 6 strategies

This does not mean that you have to listen to hours and hours of tantrums. (Show me the parent who would sign up for that!). 

In fact, listening and holding space for your child’s tantrums often results in fewer tantrums, simply because your child’s backlog of feelings is regularly released. 

But there are several other things you can do to stop tantrums happening as often. 

These ideas boost your child’s sense of connection with you, which keeps them feeling secure and confident. They also offer your child alternative opportunities to work through and release emotions. Use them together for maximum results. 

Special Time – This is a special way to play one-on-one where you hand control to your child for a small window of time. There is a dual benefit of doing Special Time. Your child gets to call the shots, giving them an opportunity to exert that much craved independence. They get your undivided attention, which keeps them feeling warm, cosy and connected with you. If we’ve had a busy few days, I increase the amount of Special Time because it is so effective at rebalancing my relationship with my son. There is a free guide on Special Time here

Physical connection – Physical touch is a great way to build connection. This creates a natural sense of ease and belonging. Try a morning hug, ruffling your child’s hair, rubbing noses, piggy-backs, swing-arounds or blowing raspberries on your child’s belly. 

Empathy – When you empathise rather than offer solutions, your child feels heard. “Oh, you didn’t want to wear those pants today? The others are dirty. I know, it sucks!” 

Play – Vary quiet, bonding play, like drawing, sand and mixing potions, with loud, competitive play which helps your child release their feelings through movement. Try hide and seek, chase, and pillow fights. If you let your child “win” most of the time, they’ll experience extra bundles of good delight often. (Here’s why it’s OK to let your child win).

Laughter – Sometimes my child gets what I call the zoomies, where he gets loud, smacks me on the butt, rushes around the house and does other things I used to find annoying. Until I realised these were his connection bids. Once I stopped chastising him and started meeting his energy instead by acting like a goof-ball myself (underpants on my head is always a win) he’d laugh and laugh. Laughter is a great way for kids to release lighter fears and frustrations. 

Playlistening – I think of this as “play with purpose”. It’s play that you set up to generate fun around areas your child finds tricky or difficult. If your child is like mine and doesn’t like to leave the house for school, pick a time when you don’t have to be anywhere and “play” around leaving. Get dressed all wrong and pretend to leave. Or say you are leaving and then head to the kitchen or wardrobe and pretend it's another world. Tell a plush toy it’s time to leave and have the toy whine and complain and beg you to stay. You are really limited only by your imagination, and as long as your child laughs, you’ll know things are going well. This kind of play can be a wonderful way to lift any negative charge that has built up around a situation. It works best if you can set up the play and then let your child lead what happens during your time together. (Here’s why…)

You’ll find that when you begin to use all these strategies through the weeks and months ahead, changes will happen. 

Your child will listen when you set a limit. Limits will be easier for you to set, and tantrums not such a heart-wrenching experience. You will feel close to being that patient parent you want to be. Your child’s outlook will shift.  You will see less resistance and defiance. Your child will feel more free and able to comply with your requests. 

And even better, you will feel a deep sense of closeness, connection and understanding of your child. 

That has been the most surprising and most rewarding benefit for me. 

My son’s fiery fury is long-gone

If your child is testing limits and fights every request you make, I hope this post helps. Identifying whining, resistant and defiant behavior as a symptom of a deeper need was a major turning point for me. Setting a limit and then listening took me time to believe in and to practice – and many days I resisted. I’m sure there will be times like this for you too. But if you keep at it I know you’ll see results. 

What gave me hope was seeing my son beam at me, happy and content, when his cries were finished.

And, over the last few years, he is lifted from the heavy burden of carrying all those feelings around everyday. His anger and frustration are gone. He seems so at ease, and has grown into a confident, funny, very intelligent boy, who is increasingly willing to try more new things. (Play dates! After-school activities! Broccoli!). 

He is still an inspired negotiator, and with the fire and fury behind it gone he is turning this skill into an actual asset. I’m no longer his enemy, I'm his parent, his coach and his biggest champion. And I no longer worry about how he’ll turn out at 15. 

If your child often resists your requests, gets angry and defiant, I know how long the days can feel. Try these tools. Embrace the cries. They may feel like the opposite of what everyone else is doing, but they work.

Do let me know what changes you see in your family. I can’t wait to hear about your transformations. 

Like these ideas?

Free Class: Get Ahead Of Tantrums

Get effective strategies to handle big upsets without resorting to yelling or punishment. Save your seat here.  

 

The post Seven Surprise Ways To Stop Tantrums In Their Tracks appeared first on Hand in Hand Parenting.

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“Je m’ennuie !” Comment faire face à l’ennui de ton enfant ? https://www.handinhandparenting.org/2023/10/je-mennuie-comment-faire-face-a-lennui-de-ton-enfant/ Mon, 16 Oct 2023 13:58:58 +0000 https://www.handinhandparenting.org/?p=60338 Un article traduit de l'anglais par Chloé Saint Guilhem, formatrice certifiée Hand in Hand “Je m'ennuie !” Qu'est-ce qu'un parent peut faire lorsque son enfant s'effondre sur le sol et se plaint : “Je m'ennuie ! Il n'y a rien à faire”, et qu'il attend, vide et apathique, une inspiration qui le sauvera d'un sort […]

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Un article traduit de l'anglais par Chloé Saint Guilhem, formatrice certifiée Hand in Hand

“Je m'ennuie !”

Qu'est-ce qu'un parent peut faire lorsque son enfant s'effondre sur le sol et se plaint : “Je m'ennuie ! Il n'y a rien à faire”, et qu'il attend, vide et apathique, une inspiration qui le sauvera d'un sort pire que les corvées ?

Nos enfants sont nés pour jouer, créer et ressentir une grande satisfaction. Ils veulent s'amuser. Ils veulent être impliqués. Ils savourent cet élan d'initiative que l'on trouve en abondance dans l'enfance. Lorsqu'ils le perdent, ils souffrent.

Ce qui maintient l'étincelle en vie, c'est le sentiment de connexion.

Le sentiment que nous les voyons, que nous comprenons qui ils sont et ce qu'ils aiment. Notre attention et notre bienveillance sont le carburant dont les enfants dépendent pour trouver leur prochaine idée d'activité, ou pour savoir avec qui il serait amusant de jouer ou d'apprendre. Lorsque nos enfants ne se sentent pas en lien avec nous, même le jouet ou l'aventure la plus cool et la plus récente perd de son éclat.

Pourquoi une liste de jeux ou d'activités ne fonctionnera jamais avec un enfant qui s'ennuie (du moins au début).

Ainsi, lorsque tu entends “Je m'ennuie” et que tu constates que les yeux de ton enfant ne brillent plus, je peux presque te garantir que le fait d'énumérer des activités ou d'essayer de l'attirer dans l'action ne fonctionnera pas. Ta tentative de remédier à son ennui ne fera qu'engendrer de la frustration, pour toi comme pour lui. À moins qu'ils ne se trouvent dans un environnement exceptionnellement restreint pendant une longue période, le problème n'est pas le manque d'occasions de s'amuser.

Le problème est qu'ils ne se sentent pas suffisamment connectés pour profiter de la vie.

Le remède n'est donc pas une liste de choses que ton enfant pourrait faire. Il ne s'agit pas de forcer ton enfant à sortir de son marasme. Le remède, c'est ton attention chaleureuse.

Quelques trucs à essayer lorsque ton enfant est pris dans un sentiment d'ennui.

  • Si le fait de voir ton enfant apathique et gémissant t'irrite, trouve quelqu'un pour t'écouter ! Pour être d'une quelconque aide, tu as d'abord besoin d'évacuer ta frustration, de faire le sermon qui te vient à l'esprit et de travailler sur la colère, le ressentiment ou l'inquiétude que te ressens dans cette situation. Ne le fais pas avec ton enfant, mais avec un autre adulte, hors de portée de voix, à un moment convenu entre vous. Recevoir un temps d'écoute, c'est un peu comme le processus de nettoyage vigoureux que les chirurgiens doivent faire avant d'opérer un patient. Tu aurais besoin d'un bon nettoyage émotionnel avant de pouvoir attirer l'attention de ton enfant qui s'ennuie. Une attention infectée par de l'impatience ou d'autres contrariété ne sera pas d'une grande utilité. Tu devras peut-être te débrouiller avec les moyens du bord jusqu'à ce que tu trouves et mettes en place un Partenariat d'écoute, mais l'effort en vaut la peine.
  • Rappelle-toi que ton enfant est bon. Il n'est pas déficient parce qu'il s'ennuie. Ton enfant a un bon esprit et un bon cœur. Il vient de tomber en panne d'essence. Il faut faire le plein ! Le carburant vital est un sentiment de connexion, et tu es justement la personne qui peut l'apporter.
  • N'essaie pas de réparer quoi que ce soit. Il n'y a pas grand-chose à réparer. Ta présence, ta chaleur et ta volonté d'être proche et attentif sont tout ce dont il y a besoin. Moins tu te démènes pour assurer ta présence, mieux c'est. La principale chose qui pourrait nécessiter une légère correction est ton programme immédiat pour la demi-heure à venir. Ce programme peut nécessiter un certain report.
  • Rapproche-toi de ton enfant. Fais-lui ressentir du plaisir et de l'intérêt pour la situation. Tu pourrais commencer par quelque chose comme : “Ohhh, tu t'ennuies, hein ? Hmmm. Rien à faire. Wow, rien à faire…” et ensuite, rester présent et attentif. Installe-toi à côté de ton enfant, là où il s'est posé quand il s'est ennuyé. Tu veux que ta présence et ton absence d'inquiétude face à la situation se fassent sentir, alors sois à l'écoute, peut-être en t'appuyant sur ton coude de temps en temps pour établir un contact visuel, ou en te blottissant un peu plus près au fur et à mesure que les minutes passent.
  • Écoute tout ce que ton enfant peut te dire sur l'horreur de l'ennui. L'écoute ouvre les canaux de communication. Tes idées ne sont pas nécessaires ici. Ton attention chaleureuse l'est.
  • Propose un contact physique après avoir écouté. Ton enfant continuera à s'ennuyer. Il faut un certain temps pour remplir un réservoir vide. Le contact physique peut aider, à condition qu'il soit accepté par l'enfant et qu'il soit proposé sans urgence ni ordre du jour. L'esprit du toucher peut donc être doux, mais il peut aussi être légèrement ludique. “Je te fais des petites caresses sur la tête, loulou ?” ou “Peut-être que si je masse ton petit orteil et que je remonte jusqu'à tes genoux, cela t'aidera. Qu'en penses-tu ?” ou “Pendant que tu essaies de penser à ce que tu voudrais faire, je vais juste masser un peu tes épaules. Qu'en penses-tu ?” Si tu obtiens une réponse très résignée : “Oh, papa ! Ça ne sert à rien ! Je m'ennuie !”, ne te décourage pas. Reste léger et ajoute un peu d'humour si tu le peux. Par exemple, tu peux demander encore une fois : “Je ne pense pas que cela va aider non plus, mais mon énergie de massage devient de plus en plus forte. Qu'est-ce que je vais en faire ? Masser ta jambe de pantalon ? ta manche ?”
  • Continue à écouter. Lorsque la plainte de ton enfant dure longtemps, il y a fort à parier que le sentiment d'isolement dont il souffre n'est pas anodin. Il se peut que les difficultés de ton enfant ne soient pas du tout liées à un manque de lien dans sa vie actuelle. Il peut arriver que beaucoup de chaleur et de connexion au cours de moments familiaux nourrissants renforcent le sentiment de sécurité émotionnelle de l'enfant. Et quand il est en sécurité, les sentiments d'isolement de la toute petite enfance sortent de leur cachette dans la mémoire émotionnelle de ton enfant. Ton écoute et ta volonté d'être attentif constituent l'antidote le plus puissant que tu puisses administrer. C'est exactement ce qu'il faut. Si ton enfant a besoin de pleurer sur le fait que la vie n'est pas drôle du tout en ce moment, Rester-écouter. Les pleurs font partie intégrante de la solution. Résiste à l'envie de le juger paresseux ou ingrat. Continue à t'intéresser à ce que ton enfant peut te dire, et à tous les sentiments qui s'expriment en cours de route.
  • Après avoir écouté et être resté près de lui pendant au moins dix ou quinze minutes sans essayer de résoudre le problème, et si ton enfant n'est pas en train de pleurer, tu peux essayer de proposer quelques solutions fantaisistes. Lance des idées farfelues pour voir si tu peux provoquer un ou deux rires. Le rire est l'un des plus puissants connecteurs auxquels nous ayons accès en tant qu'êtres humains. Des idées idiotes adaptées aux goûts de ton enfant pourraient donc aider à faire avancer les choses.

Nous nous connectons, et maintenant ?

Par exemple, tu pourrais dire aux enfants qui s'intéressent beaucoup aux vêtements ou à l'apparence : “Tu pourrais m'habiller avec la pire tenue qui soit et me faire sortir dehors pour que les gens me voient, ou tu pourrais me faire une mise en beauté qui ne ressemblerait pas vraiment à une mise en beauté”. Les petits chefs aimeront peut-être qu'on leur suggère de faire des concoctions dans la cuisine avec plein de choses dedans (encourage-les à te les faire goûter).

Parenting by ConnectionPour les amateurs d'aventure, il peut s'agir de combats au pistolet à eau dehors dans le froid ou d'allumettes allumées ensemble au-dessus de l'évier de la cuisine. Pourquoi ne pas expérimenter la combustion de différents matériaux et aliments ?

Vous pourriez même essayer de jeter divers aliments contre le mur de votre maison ou de votre appartement, en observant comment ils s'écrasent et coulent.

Tu cherches le rire, pas la “bonne” activité, et tu utilises ton imagination pour essayer de communiquer avec ton enfant. Si tu veux un objectif, c'est de susciter une aventure de quinze à trente minutes, choisie par ton enfant, qui susciterait plus de rires et raviverait le sentiment qu'a ton enfant d'être en lien avec toi.

Et si cela ne fonctionne pas, tiens bon.

Tant que tu restes proche de ton enfant et que tu ne t'inquiètes pas, tu rétablis son sentiment de connexion. Son réservoir peut rester vide pendant un certain temps jusqu'à ce qu'il se mette soudain à fonctionner à plein régime, avec un “Je sais ce que je veux faire” ou “Maman, tu veux bien m'aider avec x, y ou z ? Ensuite, je veux…”

Lorsque tu entends des mots comme ceux-là, l'esprit de ton enfant est à nouveau en marche, enfin !

Tu l'as aidé, en étant présent, en ayant confiance que ton enfant absorberait ta bienveillance, et en te rappelant que ta bienveillance était la solution élégante depuis le début.

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Why Tantrums Happen and How You Can Help…Part 1 https://www.handinhandparenting.org/2023/10/crying-out-for-connection/ Sun, 01 Oct 2023 09:34:22 +0000 https://www.handinhandparenting.org/?p=13254   How Is A Tantrum A Bid For Connection? The man at my parenting talk is exasperated by his two-year-old son’s behavior. “First, he wants a glass of milk,” he tells me. “I pour the glass and hand it to him, and he gets upset and says he doesn’t want it. So I say, ‘Okay, […]

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Helping kids with tantrumsHow Is A Tantrum A Bid For Connection?

The man at my parenting talk is exasperated by his two-year-old son’s behavior.

“First, he wants a glass of milk,” he tells me. “I pour the glass and hand it to him, and he gets upset and says he doesn’t want it. So I say, ‘Okay, then, I’ll drink the milk.’ I’m trying to show him I’m flexible. But he fusses and says, ‘No, don’t drink it, I want it!’ I offer it to him again, and he swats it away! What in the world is going on?”

He adds that these episodes are increasing. What could end this cycle of contradictory wants that is spiraling out of control? What is he doing wrong? What does his son need?

Signs A Tantrum Is Coming

This child was teetering on the edge of a tantrum, a very uncomfortable place for him and for his parents. Every child I know has moments when nothing he asks for actually helps, and when every attempt to fill his needs seems to make things worse. I offered the father a fresh perspective on tantrums that makes parenting young children much simpler, if not easier. The headline is that you can safely and serenely allow your child to have the tantrum he is heading toward. That tantrum is necessary. It’s healthy, and it’s healing. All you need to add is your warm attention. The tantrum you permit him to have clears a jam in his mental and emotional system so he can think well again.

Let’s look at this approach in more general terms. Most of us evaluate our parenting in a very straightforward way. When our children are happy, cooperative, loving, and polite, we take pride in them and in ourselves as parents. When our children are unhappy or unreasonable, we figure that something has gone wrong, and we tend to blame ourselves or them. In short, we’ve been trained to think of children’s upsets as “bad.”

When an upset arises, we want to put an end to it as quickly as possible. Some parents try distraction or reasoning; others use intimidation and force. Whatever our methods, conventional wisdom has it that it’s our job to end the upset. We require our children to tuck their upsets away and be “good” again. We don’t want them to grow up to be uncivilized, and we don’t want to feel or look like “bad” parents with “bad” children.

But what if, contrary to what we’ve grown up believing, tantrums and other expressions of feelings are actually useful? What if a tantrum is like an emotional sneeze — a natural reaction meant to clear out foreign material? Perhaps the usual struggle of parent versus child at emotional moments doesn’t have to take place. Perhaps we can throw away the mental chalkboard on which every meltdown is a mark against our children or ourselves.

A New Way To View Tantrums

There are four pivotal perceptions that can help us see tantrums in a new light

 

  • Children enjoy being easy-going, loving, cooperative, and eager to learn. Children are built to take in lots of good experiences, and to operate with joy and enthusiasm.
  • Children’s good nature can be obscured by bad feelings. When they are sad, frightened, bored, frustrated, or embarrassed, or when they feel alone or unappreciated, their good nature becomes clouded with bad feelings. This emotional tension pulls their behavior off track, away from trust, cooperation, and enthusiasm. When they are loaded with bad feelings, children literally can’t think.
  • Hurt feelings confine a child to unloving, fearful, or irrational behavior. A child will openly present this behavior in order to signal for help. The child who wanted milk, then didn’t, then did, then didn’t, was signaling as plainly as he could that his ability to think was compromised. He was asking for help with a knot of unruly feelings.
  • A child who is upset or inflexible can recover their ability to reason and to be pleased. To do this, he needs a supportive adult close by, while he works through his upset.

Feelings Spilled are Feelings Resolved

A child cries, throws a tantrum, or sometimes trembles and struggles, to expose and offload her bad feelings. During upset, a child does their best to dig herself out of an irrational state. My suggestion to the father whose son was on the verge of a tantrum may seem counterintuitive, but it works. He could stop trying to solve the unsolvable glass of milk problem, move close to his son, and pay full attention to whatever happens next.

His son will lead the way.

Usually, when a child feels that the parent has slowed down and is interested in her rather than in solving a practical problem, the feelings rise up and spill out, just the way they’re meant to. Feelings spilled are feelings resolved. Feelings spilled are not a child’s permanent assessment of the quality of our parenting. The father could listen with care to the tantrum, keeping his son safe throughout, trusting that he will soon make his way back to a reasonable state of mind.

It takes courage to listen to your first tantrum from beginning to end. It’s usually an emotional wringer for the parent who tries it. Like opening your eyes underwater for the first time, you may worry that you are doing damage. But the results are almost always thoroughly convincing. Your child feels heard. She sees that you’ve stayed with her through the worst of how she felt. Her mind clears, and life satisfies her again.

As parents gain experience staying close through their children’s emotional storms, they find that the trip no longer feels quite so risky or grueling. Their child’s upsets, which once seemed to point to a serious failure, now simply signal the need for a good cry, or a good tantrum. The child’s system is on the fritz, no blame or shame involved, and the remedy is wet and wild, but simple.

Tantrums Help The Learning Process

Tantrums arise as children’s expectations become more ambitious and more detailed. Their ideas of what they want to do are grand, yet their abilities grow only through the messy process of trial and error.

You know the scenario. Your child can’t make things go her way and, to her credit, won’t give up trying. Eventually, she runs out of new approaches. She wants to succeed, but can’t figure out how. Your well-meaning suggestions don’t help, because in this emotional state she can’t make use of any guidance; she must either fall apart or abandon the effort. Distracting her from the effort sometimes heads off the tantrum in the short run but doesn’t help in the long run. When she returns to that learning task or that expectation (or when, five minutes later, she finds another pretext to ignite her feelings), frustration will flare again, because until a tantrum dissolves it, the frustration stays pocketed inside her, agitating to be released. Feelings of frustration are an everyday glitch in the learning process, an unavoidable result of the clash between what children expect and what turns out to be possible.

As director of an infant-toddler day care center, I saw tantrums happen for each and every child. We built very close relationships with the children. We saw all of them go through periods of time when they could meet challenges without losing their equilibrium. Inevitably, however, a time came when it seemed that any small disappointment would trigger a tantrum. We saw that children who were about to walk, children who were about to talk, and children who were moving toward closer relationships with each other were likely to have regular tantrums. Actually, we usually noticed the tantrums first, and observed carefully to figure out the leap the child was working hard to make. We adults are trained to be so dependent on verbal language that we tend to be on the slow side in reading the language of children’s behavior fluently.

handling tantrumsI remember Janna, who was beginning to say her first words. Suddenly she would scream, throw herself down on the floor, and press her cheek into the soft carpet. She crawled, crying and plowing her cheek across the floor, for five or ten minutes. I would stay close and be the bumper that kept her from hitting her head on the furniture as she worked her way noisily around the room. I would murmur that I saw how hard it was, that she was doing a good job of showing me how she felt, and I stayed ready to welcome her into my arms when her explosion was completed. Finally, she would sit peacefully on my lap, let me meet her gaze and stroke her sweaty head, and then she was ready to play.

After a few weeks of many meltdowns, more words were at her disposal, and her tantrums subsided.

When he was two, my younger son had a set of tantrums that are etched in my mind. He was intently hitting a balloon toward the ceiling over and over again. I thought nothing of it until he suddenly collapsed in an active frenzy. I came closer and gave him my attention, not knowing what had happened to set him off, but knowing that once he had begun, he needed to finish, and needed me there. After five minutes or so, his mind cleared and he got up, we connected, and he went back to hitting the balloon high again. One hit, and he threw himself back down, kicking and thrashing. At that point, I realized what was going on: he thought he ought to be able to make the balloon hit the ceiling, and he couldn’t! His expectation stretched beyond his ability. After another, shorter blast of frustrated energy, he finished, connected with me, and picked up the balloon to play with it again. He was finally happy with what he could do with the balloon. These “learning leap” and “expectation adjustment” tantrums are vital, integral parts of the learning process. When your child’s learning curve is high, when she’s hopeful and active, tantrums may be frequent; she is regaining her ability to try again when she has failed and adjusting her expectations of herself, of what she’s permitted to do, and of you. She is learning by experience and blasting away the negative feelings that sometimes come with trying so hard and meeting disappointment. Tantrums are the “sneeze” that ejects the foreign material of frustration from your child’s mind and body, so she can be proud of her abilities and her circumstances again.

In Part Two of Patty's Ultimate Guide to Tantrums where you can find out how to get comfortable allowing tantrums, how upsets can help kids work on deep-down core issues and how you can respond to extended crying sessions to build trust.

Read part two of Patty's Tantrums series here.

This article first appeared on mothering.com

 From the Hand in Hand Toolbox:

  • Discover how a children's emotions are linked to their behaviors. Download this free guide
  • Hear more about these effective and connecting ways to address tantrums supportively in this free workshop with Hand in Hand Instructor Emily Murray. Click here to save your seat, 

 

 

The post Why Tantrums Happen and How You Can Help…Part 1 appeared first on Hand in Hand Parenting.

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10 façons d’aider un enfant qui se sent anxieux à l’idée d’aller à l’école https://www.handinhandparenting.org/2023/08/anxieux-a-lidee-daller-a-lecole/ Thu, 24 Aug 2023 16:13:13 +0000 https://www.handinhandparenting.org/?p=59593 Un article traduit de l’anglais par Chloé Saint Guilhem, formatrice certifiée Hand in Hand L'école peut être source de nombreux changements – et de nombreux sentiments à l'égard de ces changements. Pour certains enfants, l'école peut représenter un défi de taille. Ils se sentent anxieux et stressés, mais nous ne nous en rendrons peut-être jamais […]

The post 10 façons d’aider un enfant qui se sent anxieux à l’idée d’aller à l’école appeared first on Hand in Hand Parenting.

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Un article traduit de l’anglais par Chloé Saint Guilhem, formatrice certifiée Hand in Hand

L'école peut être source de nombreux changements – et de nombreux sentiments à l'égard de ces changements. Pour certains enfants, l'école peut représenter un défi de taille. Ils se sentent anxieux et stressés, mais nous ne nous en rendrons peut-être jamais compte.

Souvent, les enfants ne nous disent pas qu'ils sont anxieux à propos de l'école, du moins pas de la façon dont nous nous y attendons.

Au contraire, ils nous le montrent.

Recherche les signes “secrets” de stress et d'anxiété

Si ton enfant pouvait s'approcher de toi et toi dire : “J'aimerais parler de cette histoire d'école. Je ne sais pas trop à quoi m'attendre. Je ne suis pas sûr d'être prêt”, il le ferait certainement.

Mais même les enfants qui s'expriment très bien, ont du mal à être aussi directs.

Au lieu de cela, et afin de nous alerter sur leurs craintes persistantes et leur anxiété, les enfants essaient de nous le montrer d'autres façons.

Souvent de manière agaçante.

Ou de manière frustrante.

Ou d'une manière qui nous touche également sur le plan émotionnel.

L'Institut Gottman appelle ces signaux des “offres d'attention“.

Chaque enfant est différent, mais voici ce que tu peux observer si un enfant est anxieux à propos d'un nouveau trimestre ou d'un nouvel enseignant.

  • Certains enfants peuvent devenir très collants.
  • Il peut y avoir plus de larmes, plus souvent, apparemment pour rien ou de nulle part.
  • Les pleurnicheries peuvent augmenter soudainement.
  • Tu observeras des comportements agressifs tels que la rage, les coups de pied, les coups de poing et les morsures.
  • Ton enfant peut devenir très exigeant sur la façon dont il veut que les choses soient faites.
  • Si tu n'arrives jamais à couper un morceau de pain grillé “comme il faut”, tu es peut-être sur la piste de la nervosité et de l'inquiétude de ton enfant.

Qu'est-ce qui motive ces appels à la connexion ?

Les enfants cherchent à attirer l'attention lorsqu'ils ne sont pas sûrs de la place qu'ils occupent dans leur monde.

Lorsqu'un nouveau bébé arrive et menace de leur voler tout l'amour qu'ils ont pour eux, par exemple.

Ou lorsqu'il y a une préoccupation imminente, comme l'école.

Et si l'on y réfléchit bien, les pleurnicheries, le fait de s'accrocher et les comportements exigeants attirent rapidement l'attention. Ils offrent également une porte de sortie au stress qu'ils subissent. Un moyen d'évacuer l'anxiété. Lorsque les enfants peuvent se débarrasser de ces sentiments d'anxiété, ils parviennent à surmonter leurs craintes avant l'école.

Cependant, ces tentatives d'attirer l'attention ne sont pas totalement efficaces lorsque les parents les interprètent comme un comportement visant à les pousser à bout et tentent de les faire taire.

Comment répondre aux demandes d'attention d'un enfant avant l'école ?

Une fois que les sentiments d'anxiété d'un enfant ont un endroit où ils peuvent s'exprimer, ils perdent leur pouvoir. Il en va de même pour les adultes.

Imagine que tu aies un appel important à passer. Tu es tendu et nerveux. Pourtant, tu as beau te dire que tu dois passer cet appel, tu n'arrives pas à décrocher le téléphone.

Imagine que tu parles de ces craintes à un ami. Tu lui dis à quel point cela peut paraître stupide ou tu lui expliques exactement pourquoi tu te sens inquiet. Comment te sens-tu après cet appel ?

Tu ne vas pas te précipiter pour décrocher le téléphone, mais l'idée de le faire ne te semble pas si insupportable ou impossible. En fait, plus tu t'accordes de l'espace et de la générosité, plus cela devient facile. Plus la distance entre l'idée de passer l'appel et le fait de décrocher le téléphone, de composer le numéro et de dire “Bonjour” se réduit.

Il en va de même pour les enfants et leurs craintes concernant l'école.

S'approcher, écouter et répondre gentiment à un enfant, même si ce qu'il dit n'a rien à voir avec l'école, peut l'aider.

Cela donne à l'enfant un exutoire qui l'aide à évacuer son anxiété refoulée.

Lorsque tu lui donnes l'occasion de s'exprimer, il travaille sur ses peurs et se rapproche d'un sentiment de satisfaction à l'égard de l'école.

Un moyen efficace d'y parvenir est de fixer une limite et de s'y tenir. L'approche en trois étapes de Hand in Hand pour fixer une limite est idéale parce qu'elle offre à l'enfant un espace pour exprimer ses sentiments et favorise une réaction chaleureuse et de soutien.

Clique-ici pour en savoir plus.

10 façons d'aider les enfants qui se sentent anxieux à l'idée de commencer l'école

Tu peux également faire en sorte que ton enfant ait la possibilité de se défaire de son anxiété à propos de l'école, de manière ludique et en lui apportant ton soutien. Ces 10 idées te donneront de nombreuses pistes pour y parvenir.

1. Renforce le sentiment de sécurité à la maison

Environ une semaine avant la rentrée scolaire, prépare-toi à passer environ 10 minutes par jour à te concentrer uniquement sur ton enfant et sur ce à quoi il veut jouer. C'est ce que nous appelons le Temps Particulier à Hand in Hand et cela fonctionne à merveille pour renforcer le sentiment de sécurité.

Pour en savoir plus sur le Temps Particulier et découvrir notre checklist, cliquez ici.

2. Joue en exagérant

Multipliez les jeux. Jouez beaucoup et laisse ton enfant prendre l'initiative.

S'il te demande de jouer doucement, suis ses instructions. S'il veut jouer à fond, fais de ton mieux pour répondre à sa demande !

Les jeux vivants, comme les batailles d'oreillers, les rouleaux de burrito et le jeu du chat, sont très efficaces pour aider à éliminer le stress et la tension accumulés par le biais du toucher physique. Tu sauras que c'est le cas lorsque ton enfant rira aux éclats – ou, tu peux t'y attendre, pleurera.

(Si ton enfant trouve une petite chose à propos de laquelle pleurer, il utilise en fait les larmes comme un exutoire pour se débarrasser d'une certaine peur – nous y reviendrons plus tard).

Cette façon de jouer est nouvelle pour toi ? Nous le comprenons ! Découvre ici ce que tu peux attendre de cette forme de jeu et comment démarrer un Jeu-écoute.

3. Accueille les sentiments de ton enfant

Ne sois pas surpris si un enfant semble trouver des raisons de pleurer pendant le jeu.

Lorsque ces larmes coulent, c'est un peu comme lorsque nous avons eu une journée très difficile. Une personne charmante nous dit quelque chose de gentil. Que se passe-t-il ? Nous nous retrouvons à pleurer !

Le soulagement que nous ressentons en sachant que nous sommes toujours aimés et que le monde va bien est le même pour nos enfants !

Très souvent, un enfant se sert d'un petit coup ou d'un atterrissage brutal comme d'une bonne excuse pour faire le vide émotionnel en pleurant.

Dans ces moments-là, penche-toi sur lui et écoute. Il n'est pas nécessaire de dire grand-chose, il suffit d'être là et de dire quelque chose de temps en temps, comme “Je sais que c'est difficile” ou “Tu es en sécurité ici”.

Parfois, cela fera couler plus de larmes, mais c'est encore une fois une bonne chose. Ton enfant prend le temps de se débarrasser de ses peurs et de ses inquiétudes.

Pour en savoir plus sur les raisons scientifiques de l'efficacité de cette stratégie d'écoute, consulte l'article, La science derrière l'outil Rester-écouter dans l'approche parentale Hand in Hand.

4. Fais des bisous supplémentaires et des câlins surprises.

Considère le temps passé avant l'école comme un moment privilégié pour être proche de ton enfant.

Cela renforce son sentiment de confiance, de connexion et d'estime de soi.

Comme le souligne cet article en anglais, 80 % des adultes déclarent ne pas s'être sentis aimés par leurs parents.

Nous pouvons changer cela pour nos enfants.

En recherchant des occasions de les “surprendre” en train d'être adorables, en les remarquant et en nous réjouissant de leurs traits de caractère particuliers.

Ainsi, lorsqu'ils jouent, approche-toi discrètement et dépose un baiser surprise sur leur joue douce. Passe cinq minutes de plus dans la journée en te blottissant contre eux un livre à la main, ou reste quelques minutes de plus avec eux après l'extinction des feux.

Ces efforts remplissent le réservoir affectif des enfants et apaisent leur anxiété.

5. Écoute aussi tes sentiments

Si tu veux donner à ton enfant toutes les bonnes occasions dont il a besoin pour se débarrasser de ses peurs et de ses inquiétudes concernant l'entrée à l'école, tu devras peut-être passer par de nombreuses séances de Temps Particulier, de jeu et d'écoute des pleurs de ton enfant.

Cela peut être émotionnellement et physiquement fatigant pour nous, parents.

Assure-toi d'avoir quelqu'un pour t'écouter et pour comprendre ce que tu ressens face à cette situation. Pense à rejoindre notre réseau gratuit Hand in Hand, bientôt disponible en français, où les parents et les modérateurs font un excellent travail en offrant une communauté et un soutien dans les moments difficiles.

6. Aborde souvent le sujet de l'école

Ne cesse pas de parler de l'école – tu pourrais même tenir un calendrier et cocher les jours jusqu'au premier jour – et trouver des prétextes pour aborder le sujet :

  • Amusez-vous à choisir quelques trucs spéciaux dont tes enfants pourraient avoir besoin pour l'école, puis arrêtez-vous pour manger une glace.
  • Prenez le chemin de l'école.
  • Visitez l'école même si les portes sont encore fermées pour les vacances.
  • Organisez un rendez-vous avec des amis de l'école.
  • Jouez à “l'école” et observe les réactions de ton enfant. Est-il heureux de jouer ou réticent ? Veut-il être un enseignant ou un élève ? Comment interagit-il avec toi dans ton rôle au cours du jeu ?

Ces actions permettent non seulement à l'enfant de se familiariser avec l'école, mais aussi de s'exprimer sur ce qu'il ressent à son égard.

Souviens-toi que cela peut prendre la forme de pleurs, de gémissements ou de nombreuses demandes de jeux et de proximité, ou encore de déclarations provocatrices, comme celles-ci :

  • “Je ne veux pas aller à l'école”.
  • “Je n'irai pas.”
  • “L'école est nulle et je la déteste.
  • “Je n'irai jamais à l'école.”
  • “Je ne veux pas jouer à l'école”.
7. Sois un véritable chercheur de sentiments

Malgré les apparences, ton enfant fait bien de parler de ses inquiétudes avec celui ou celle avec qui il se sent le plus en sécurité : toi !

Des phrases fortes comme celles-ci montrent qu'un enfant a beaucoup de sentiments qui attendent d'être entendus.

La plupart d'entre nous avons été élevés pour trouver des solutions et essayer d'apporter des correctifs lorsque nous entendons des mots comme ceux-ci. Nous pourrions dire :

  • “Oh ! ce ne sera pas si terrible”.
  • “Tu vas adorer une fois que tu auras commencé.”
  • “Oh, ne t'inquiète pas, tout ira bien”.

Comme nous avons entendu ces mots lorsque nous étions enfants, il est naturel que nous nous retrouvions à dire des choses similaires, mais un enfant peut avoir l'impression que ses grandes, effrayantes et intenses inquiétudes sont balayées sous le tapis.

Change le cycle en étant ouvert à toute communication.

Mets-toi dans la peau d'un chercheur et cherche les véritables sentiments qui se cachent derrière ces déclarations. Voici trois affirmations que tu peux essayer de remplacer.

  • “Ah oui ? Tu détestes l'école ? Cela doit être difficile.”
  • “Moi aussi, j'ai trouvé l'école difficile. Qu'est-ce qui te déplaît le plus ?”
  • “Je me demande pourquoi tu ressens cela ?” ou “Je me demande comment nous pouvons dépasser cela ?”

Parfois, les enfants sont eux-mêmes les meilleurs chercheurs de solutions.

Ton enfant pourrait te dire. “Ça pourrait aller si tu me promets d'être là quand j'y rentrerai”. Ou “Peut-être que si je prends mon crayon spécial, je me sentirai mieux”.

Mais s'il n'a pas de suggestions, ne le presse pas et ne le force pas.

Reste près de lui et continue à t'interroger à ce sujet jusqu'à ce que ton enfant change d'avis. (Souvent, il s'agit de quelque chose de totalement inattendu, comme “Et si nous jouions aux voitures !”)

8. Réponds au radar de vérité de ton enfant

Les enfants ont un radar de vérité bien réglé et peuvent flairer tout signe d'évitement. Il est donc utile d'être aussi honnête que possible lorsqu'ils posent des questions difficiles.

“Maman, peux-tu rester en classe avec moi toute la journée ?

“Pourquoi mon petit frère reste-t-il à la maison avec toi ?”

Il est compréhensible que nous voulions parfois fuir aussi vite que possible ces grandes questions, craignant nous-mêmes de provoquer des bouleversements ou de rendre encore plus effrayante une situation qui l'est déjà.

Mais cela peut distraire l'enfant.

Ce radar de la vérité sent que quelque chose ne va pas.

Il peut mettre en doute ta crédibilité, voire la validité de ses propres sentiments, lorsque tu lui dis quelque chose qui ne correspond pas à la vérité.

Que peux-tu faire à la place ? (Même si ton cœur bat la chamade !)

  1. Rapproche-toi.
  2. Établis un contact visuel.
  3. Adopte un ton léger. “Je serai là pour te déposer et te récupérer, mais je ne peux pas rester en classe tout le temps”. Ou encore : “Oui, ton petit frère est trop jeune pour aller à l'école. Il restera à la maison jusqu'à ce qu'il ait ton âge, comme tu l'as fait. Qu'en penses-tu ?

Si cela provoque des cris de contrariété ou de défiance, tu peux te rapprocher et reconnaître que cette période est difficile pour ton enfant. Ton enfant profite de cette situation pour se débarrasser de son anxiété.

Ils sont si intelligents !

9. Prenez des habitudes avant l'heure de l'école

Si l'école signifie un réveil plus matinal, plus de précipitations et d'autres changements dans votre routine, vous pouvez les mettre en pratique à l'avance.

Cherche les points d'achoppement.

Ton enfant met-il plus de temps que tu ne le pensais à s'habiller ? Le petit-déjeuner sera-t-il un défi ?

C'est l'occasion, avant que la journée d'école ne commence, de préparer, d'ajuster et de retravailler les matins pour qu'ils ressemblent davantage à ce que tu aimerais qu'ils soient.

10. Établis un plan pour rester connectés les jours d'école

La mise en place de moyens personnels pour se connecter et garder le lien contribue grandement à aider les enfants à se sentir plus en sécurité lorsqu'ils sont loin de vous. Essaie :

  • un petit mot dans le sac de pique-nique
  • un trésor dans une poche
  • une blague du matin
  • une routine spéciale pour déposer ton enfant à l'école

Envoie ton enfant à l'école en étant moins anxieux et plus confiant.

Une dernière chose à retenir.

Ces idées sont plus efficaces lorsqu'elles sont variées. Certaines augmentent la chaleur et la sécurité et encouragent l'enfant à montrer ses vrais sentiments, d'autres sont là pour soutenir et nourrir l'enfant affectivement pendant qu'il se débarrasse de ses peurs, alors essaie d'en expérimenter quelques-unes.

Ce processus permet d'accroître la résilience et la confiance en soi des enfants pour qu'ils aillent à l'école en toute sérénité.

Ton enfant est-il anxieux à l'idée d'aller à l'école ?

Quels comportements observe-tu ? As-tu trouvé de bonnes solutions pour aider ton enfant à faire la transition ? Nous serions ravis d'entendre tes réflexions et tes expériences !

The post 10 façons d’aider un enfant qui se sent anxieux à l’idée d’aller à l’école appeared first on Hand in Hand Parenting.

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Back To School Support Pack For Educators https://www.handinhandparenting.org/2023/08/back-to-school-support-pack-for-educators/ Fri, 11 Aug 2023 08:52:14 +0000 https://www.handinhandparenting.org/?p=59434 The first day of school can be a source of great anxiety, with students and parents feeling anticipation and nerves. The tools and strategies in this Back to School Support Pack build a sense of security and connection, and can be used at home or in the classroom. Please share them with families and colleagues […]

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The first day of school can be a source of great anxiety, with students and parents feeling anticipation and nerves.

The tools and strategies in this Back to School Support Pack build a sense of security and connection, and can be used at home or in the classroom. Please share them with families and colleagues you work with.

The Impact of Emotions on Behavior

A Guide to Children's Emotions: Here's a refresher on a child's emotions and how it impacts their behaviors, with  supportive ways to support them and anchor co-regulation. Please circulate to parents of children in your class if you think it would be helpful.

The fear experience inside a child’s mind: On the outside, a child might look defiant, angry, or aggressive. This graphic highlights their inner experience.

Solutions for Handling Distraction, Upsets and Explosive Behaviors

Introduction To Special Time: An ideal tool to bring connection and co-regulation to your class. Many teachers find behaviors improve by spending just two minutes of Special Time with dis-regulated students a few times a week.

How to Support A Child When They Cry: Helpful things to say to support a child when they get upset.

The Long Goodbye: How to help ease a child's anxiety at school drop off. Let parents know you support this approach.

It's Ok To Feel Things poster: Let kids know you welcome their whole selves.

Five Ways To Help A Child Work Through Anger: Responses to help a child offload the fears that drive anger.

Share with parents

1. Guide to Separation Anxiety: This step-by-step guide shows parents what happens in a child's emotional world when they are scared to go to daycare or school.

2. Back To School Connection Checklists. Parents can maintain a strong sense of security start using these strategies ahead of school to help your child feel confident about school.

3. Games to Heal Separation: These rib ticklers give children an outlet to confront their fears safely, and to offload worries and fears through laughter so kids feel more confident coming to school.

How Hand in Hand Empowers Adults To Nurture Children

Hand in Hand is a non-profit that offers an evidence-based program that supports adults who care for children with a set of nurturing, emotionally responsive tools.

Learn more about us here: Empowering Adults, Nurturing Children.

Please share this presentation with administrators or members of your team.

Empower Yourself With SEL Tools

Learn an evidenced-based program created to decrease educator stress and increase children’s abilities to learn. See more about Hand in Hand Foundations for Educators classes here.

The post Back To School Support Pack For Educators appeared first on Hand in Hand Parenting.

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Back To School Support Pack for Parents https://www.handinhandparenting.org/2023/08/back-to-school-support-pack/ Wed, 09 Aug 2023 07:06:31 +0000 https://www.handinhandparenting.org/?p=59361 Welcome to your back to school support pack. Cycle through all the information and activities included here and get all you need for your child to start the school year with confidence. 1. Guide to Separation Anxiety: Your step-by-step guide shows you what happens for your child when they are scared to go to daycare or school. […]

The post Back To School Support Pack for Parents appeared first on Hand in Hand Parenting.

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Helpful ideas to ease the back to school transition

Welcome to your back to school support pack. Cycle through all the information and activities included here and get all you need for your child to start the school year with confidence.

1. Guide to Separation Anxiety: Your step-by-step guide shows you what happens for your child when they are scared to go to daycare or school.

2. Back To School Connection Checklists. If you can, start using these strategies ahead of school to help your child feel confident about school.

3. Games to Heal Separation: These rib ticklers give children an outlet to confront their fears safely, and to offload worries and fears through laughter.

4. Your Guide to Special Time: Discover how just 5 minutes of this one-on-one play can ease a child's anxieties and increase their confidence.

5. How to Support Your Child When They Cry: Learn what to say – and what not to say – when your child gets upset using the Hand in Hand Staylistening tool.

6. The Long Goodbye: How to help your child ease anxiety at school drop off. Share this with your child's teacher ahead of time if this idea is new at your school.

Bonus Call!

Podcast with Patty Wipfler and Lawrence Cohen on helping a children with fear and anxiety

 

 

 

 

In this call, Hand in Hand's Patty Wipfler and play therapist Lawrence Cohen share playful and respectful strategies to help children overcome their fears. Listen to Helping Children Recover From Fear and Anxiety now.

 

Empower Yourself, Nurture Your Child

In Hand in Hand's Foundations classes you'll work weekly with a Hand in Hand instructor to make these transformative tools your family's go-to. See more here.

 

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Meet The Preschool Teachers That Listen to Kids https://www.handinhandparenting.org/2023/08/meet-the-preschool-teachers-that-listen-to-kids/ Wed, 02 Aug 2023 10:10:53 +0000 https://www.handinhandparenting.org/?p=14075 Imagine you had a teacher that listened, really listened, when you were upset at school. In daycare and pre-school settings, there are many cries for many reasons. Children missing parents. Children that need the bathroom and don't know how to ask. Children that hate the chaos and din of a classroom. Children wondering why dad […]

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Imagine you had a teacher that listened, really listened, when you were upset at school.

preschooler-cryingIn daycare and pre-school settings, there are many cries for many reasons. Children missing parents. Children that need the bathroom and don't know how to ask. Children that hate the chaos and din of a classroom. Children wondering why dad didn't come home last night.

And now imagine how many of those cries get shushed or go unheard.

For teachers, it might seem a tall order that children should be encouraged to cry – especially when their workloads are hard, stuffed with to-do's, activities, and changes and nap-times.

Yet some teachers are seeing the power of listening to tantrums and tears in classroom.

What Good Listening Looks Like

“Just the other day I had some Staylistening time with one of my little guys. He could not stop being “teasy” with two of the other children,” says Geri Kelly, head teacher at Topanga Community Preschool.  “He was pushing, knocking over toys, laughing at them and then running away. I caught up to him and said, “Come here. I want to be with you.”

The pupil reacted badly to the apple Geri was holding at the time. “Don't hold me! You have an apple! I hate apples! Don't touch me with that apple! I'll stop! You got apple on me! Your breath smells like apple! I'm hot! You're making me hot! I don't like apples!” he yelled.

But she wasn't put off. She stayed with him for 10 minutes as he screamed until finally tears came and she had got to the reason behind his troubling behavior.

He felt alone.

He cried that he wanted his mommy, who was out of town, says Geri.

“I listened. I told him I would keep him safe. He slowed down, then asked to read some stories,” she says.

This kind of release can actually be helpful in class, she says. Anxiousness and worry often results in preschoolers acting unruly, being inattentive, distracted or even aggressive. Crying gives them a chance to offload that build up, and once done, many enter a new state of calm and contentment.

Psychologists recognise that when the brain's limbic centre, the part of the brain in control of emotional responses, gets flooded, rational thinking shuts down.

Crying can give kids the release they need to offload, move on, and get back on track.

Geri, who has worked in early childhood for 15 years, began using Staylistening, and other listening tools like it, as she brought up her own kids. Although the tools can be challenging to use in larger groups at times, she says, they're adaptable.

Although she would have liked to offer the boy more time to work through his feelings one-on-one, “There were other children to be cared for, and the story option seemed to meet the most needs at the time,” Geri says. Together, they read stories with about five other children and then they all went back to peaceful play when the last page was turned.

Emerging Empathy: Against the Grain on Aggression

teachers-that-listenThis kind of empathy and attention is at odds with traditional shame and punishments commonly employed in classroom settings. Those discipline types bring immediate responses and are frequently what nursery teachers are trained to use, but they seem outdated and unfair to children says Austin-based preschool teacher and Hand in Hand Parenting instructor Laura Minnigerode. “These are such young children. They are just little kids,” she says.

She has used Staylistening with children in a few different daycare settings, sometimes with very aggressive children to help treat tightly held underlying fears. She admits that resistance can come from co-teachers and other members of staff. “I passed one teacher the booklet on Healing Children's Fears part of the Hand in Hand Listening To Children booklets. We both agreed it could have been written for one of the girls in our class,” she says.

Yet the girl's crying bothered the teacher, and so Laura had to take her out of class when she cried. Others say children should not be allowed in school if they can't be quiet.

But seeing the developments preschoolers make when they are listened to inspires Laura to keep using the tools. She often adapts Special Time, a tool where kids receive periods of undivided one-on-one time, into “a moment of delight,” where she watches them attentively and with adoration for a minute or two. “Even that, feeling like someone is really present, makes a difference,” she says.

More Teachers Using Listening Tools

And she senses change coming slowly. As a new generation of younger teachers enter classrooms they seem much more eager to veer from traditional models, perhaps especially as neuroscience shows us more and more about how children's brains develop and process information.

Since most teachers join the profession with a real drive to see children learn, the close bond that tools like Staylistening promote looks compelling. “We want children to learn and they learn better when they are connected,” says Laura. “For a teacher, that's an amazing thing.”

From the Hand in Hand Toolbox:

Get tips for helping kids with separation anxiety at school in this free replay with Laura Minnigerode

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Start School Days with Special Time! https://www.handinhandparenting.org/2023/08/start-school-days-with-special-time/ Tue, 01 Aug 2023 19:37:32 +0000 https://www.handinhandparenting.org/?post_type=article&p=5448 On busy school day mornings, we try to send our children off with love. We sandwich “I love you. Have a good day!” between “Where's my homework?” and “Can you pick me up after soccer practice?” We've got a suggestion that can help you build the feel of your love into a child’s morning routine, […]

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On busy school day mornings, we try to send our children off with love. We sandwich “I love you. Have a good day!” between “Where's my homework?” and “Can you pick me up after soccer practice?” We've got a suggestion that can help you build the feel of your love into a child’s morning routine, so you can actually accomplish your goal.

Second GradeSet the alarm fifteen minutes early. Five minutes is for you to enjoy the quiet of the morning before the stampede begins. Ten minutes is for pajama-clad Special Time before anybody has to rush anywhere. First thing in the morning can be a wonderfully effective time to connect with children, especially children going to school where they won't get to see you all day.

Fill them up with your warm, playful attention before worrying about their balanced breakfast. Turn the snooze alarm into the snuggle alarm. Make sure everyone in the house knows they are loved and cared for, and welcomed into this new day, before any of the many mundane chores gobble up your attention. Even ten minutes of your undivided attention can bolster a young child who is anxious about the separations morning often brings.

Children often experience sleep as a separation. Much of the morning's usual dawdling is often a child's reluctance to let go of you now that they feel reunited after the long time away in Dreamland.

Allowing a child to experience morning as a happy reunion, rather than a disconnected push toward yet another separation, can change the tone in the house and set them on a path toward a happier day.

You'll be amazed how much more effective and cooperative children can be when their need for affectionate connection is given first priority. A happy, confident child is much easier to wrangle out the door to face the busy activities of the day. And a child who feels emotionally connected and relaxed is better able to transition into the school environment and to absorb the day’s learning.

Here's how it can work.

When my son started preschool, getting used to the new routine was hard for us all. We were all used to our laid back mornings where my son would sleep until he woke up on his own. When he did wake up, we would hang out in pajamas and play for a while and not worry about breakfast until he said he was hungry or get dressed until we were ready to go out.

Of course preschool changed all this! Now I was giving orders all morning: Time to get up, eat your breakfast, we need to get dressed, and worst of all, “We don’t have time to play, we have to go!” All this happened even though I’m actually pretty relaxed about having to be at school “on time.” As I said to a friend, there are no tardy bells in preschool!

My son didn’t like this scenario at all. He became frustrated easily and I listened to may tantrums around trivial issues like the shoes he wanted to wear, or whether I put milk on his cereal (or not!). I understood that it was good to listen to his feelings, and was OK about doing that (most of the time). But I was still feeling like a drill sergeant, and I could tell that my son was left feeling like he never got to do what he wanted to do in the mornings. It was a lousy way to start the day for us all!

After reading a success story in which the parent did Special Time for five minutes every night, it occurred to me that we might try Special Time in the mornings. We already do Special Time with him several times each week, but usually in longer chunks. It hadn’t occurred to me that such a small amount of time would be useful, but it certainly seemed worth a try.

When we introduced Special Time into our mornings, I made a chart with pictures of all the things we have to do in the morning, including Special Time. As I was making the chart, I thought about where to put Special Time in our morning routine. The temptation was to put it after all the “business” had been taken care of, but I realized that in order to build a good current connection with my son, it would be best if Special Time was first thing we did.

The changes have been tremendous. Where before just getting out of bed was sometimes a struggle, now when he wakes up (even if he has to be gently woken) he hops up and says, “Let’s do Special Time!” Our struggles over getting dressed and ready to go are significantly diminished. Now when I need to get him moving, I can just ask him to look at the list and tell me what we need to do next. Now I don’t have to be the nag, I get to be the assistant who helps him get dressed, brush teeth, etc. when he tells me it’s time. We still have days where getting out the door is a struggle, but things are much smoother. Taking just five minutes to make sure that things go his way first thing in the morning starts us out on a note of connection and cooperation.

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