Tantrum Training Class Helps a Family
First I would like to thank for your support. I am so glad that I could attend the Tantrum Training seminar. I have a 2.5 year old son and a 16 month old daughter. As
First I would like to thank for your support. I am so glad that I could attend the Tantrum Training seminar. I have a 2.5 year old son and a 16 month old daughter. As
I moved us over to the couch and pulled him onto my lap and held him while he cried away all the cluttered emotions that were getting in his way.
I talked about nail biting, how I feel about it, and how I feel about my sons doing it. It felt to me as if nail biting was one of those habits that was almost impossible to shake off. I felt that my sons were doomed to live with the habit for the rest of their lives.
I decided that we had to do some Special Time (whether we wanted to or not!)
Now, that it was time to brush teeth and go to bed, they were not in the mood.
I knew that she was judging herself harshly, and I wanted to see if she could work through it.
After I had my daughter I didn’t know whether I wanted to have a second child. I didn’t really understand the benefits of having a sibling.
After about 10 minutes, my husband came in and said, ‘how do you know you’re not hurting them or making things worse?’ I had to shout over their wailing that we were on the right track and even predicted that, at the end of all this, one sister would genuinely give the toy to the other.
Recently in our family we’ve had a new baby. That’s brought all sorts of adjustments, of course, for my son. There are a few “playlistening” ideas that have been helpful, that others may find useful too:
I didn’t make him do it, but I didn’t give up on the idea that he COULD do it.
I just told them both that I was there for them and that it was okay to cry.
Our older son tore it out of his brother’s hands and said that he was playing with it.
I sensed that she was being triggered by the memory of her sister’s serious fall. I followed her to her room, where she was hiding in the closet. I went in there to do Staylistening, but she wouldn’t look at me and wasn’t communicative.
This whole situation demonstrates so clearly how the listening tools in Parenting by Connection all work together.
This helped me gain confidence in the notion that if I supportively stayed with my daughter while she struggled with negative emotions, she would come out to the other side of them…