Parenting Blog

This post is part of our series on Parenting for Emotional Intelligence: Real Life Examples.

Your 18 month old notices how perfectly that slice of bologna will fit into the cd player.  Instead of shrieking and smacking her hand, you realize that this is an effort at mastery -- in fact, a brilliant one.  You say "Wow, that fits! You noticed it's a circle, and it's the right size.  But bologna doesn't go there, the cd goes there.  See how the cd goes in?  Let's feed that bologna to the cat.  See how happy that makes him? Now let's find your shape sorter.  Do you see any circles?  Where do you think they could go?" 

Your two year old is cranky and whining; you can't seem to please him. You could put him in front of the TV, which will teach him that when you're feeling off-kilter you should zone out, distract yourself,  and "stuff" your feelings.  Instead, you realize that two year olds build up a lot of frustration in the course of the day and sometimes they just need a safe place to let it all out (your arms!) You say: "Nothing seems to be going right for you this morning...I wonder if you just need to cry?  Everybody needs to cry sometimes.  Come snuggle with Daddy and you can cry as much as you want." 

Your four year old always wants Mommy and won't let Daddy put him to bed. Instead of taking it personally and huffing out of the room, you realize this is a normal developmental phase.  You help him work through his feelings about how much he prefers mom by playing a game where you "try" unsuccessfully to keep him away from Mommy.  Get between him and his mom, and roar that you won't let him get to his mom, and then let him run right around you, or better yet, push you over.  Let him be the powerful one while you bumble and protest.  He'll giggle and boast and get a chance to prove he can ALWAYS have his mom.  He'll also discharge all those pent up worries that make him demand her. Laughter releases stress hormones as well as tears and is a lot more fun.  Then, let him choose who he wants to put him to bed.  Don't be surprised if he chooses Dad. (If he doesn't, just keep repeating this game to help him work through this issue.)

Your five year old keeps looking right at you and breaking rules, like jumping on the couch.  You realize that one of two things is going on.  Either he's angry and taunting you as part of a larger power struggle.  Or he's pushing to see where the limits are to make sure you're in charge and can keep him safe. 

Should you punish him?  Well, if this is a power struggle, punishment will just escalate it; the solution is to sidestep confrontations with re-direction, choices, and more autonomy for him in general.  And if he's checking to see where the boundaries are, punishing him won't make him feel safer, it will just convince him you're not on his side. 

So should you just give up on your limit and let him jump on the couch?  That's your choice. I personally found it a great release for my kids and my couch is still fine years later.  Kids do seem to need to jump, and I didn't have any good alternatives to offer them. But in that case, be explicit that you've dropped that rule so he's not confused about your laxity.

On the other hand, if you're clear that couches are not for jumping, then you need to step in to redirect him every single time he breaks the rule. Take his hand and say, "You know the rule is No Jumping on the couch.  It breaks the couch.  You can jump on the trampoline in the basement, or you can go outside and jump on your pogo stick, but NO jumping on the couch."  If you intervene this way every single time he even thinks about jumping on the couch, he'll stop doing it.

You've told your six year old three times to go brush her teeth, but you hang up the phone and see she's still playing on the computer.  Instead of yelling, you realize that your expectation wasn't age-appropriate.  She needed your help.  You walk over, put your hand on her shoulder, and say "Sweetie, look up at me." You wait until she tears her gaze from the computer to make eye contact and connect with you. "It's time to brush your teeth and get ready for bed.  You've had three warnings. Can you turn off the computer yourself or do you want me to do it?" She begins to wheedle to just finish this one part of the game. "I'm sorry, Sweetie, I know it's hard to stop, but you can play more tomorrow. Now it's time to say Goodbye, Game. Ok, I'm turning it off.  I know that makes you sad, but I was on the phone a long time and now it's almost lights out. Come, let's go upstairs.  I want to make sure we have time for a story.  What should we read tonight?"

"Amazing how a negative message -- even if it's unintentional -- can inflict a sharp stab to the soul and break down a child's spirit." -- Joanne Stern

Children rely on us to interpret the world:  "That's soft....HOT, Don't touch!...Say Thank You.... Now let's wash our hands... We always... We never.... This is how we do it.....The sky is blue...."

What happens when they hear: "You'd lose your head if it wasn't glued on.....That was a dumb thing to do....I'm so sick of your ....Can't you....You never....You always.....You make me want to scream!...I can't stand how you...."?

What happens when they overhear: "He's not good at that....He was so awful today.....He's never been much of a student....He and his sister just don't get along....You won't believe the day I've had with that kid....He's so irresponsible....He never does his chores without me hounding him.....He's always like that....."

They believe it. 

Even if they don't show it, even if they act like they don't care, on some level our kids believe everything we say.  But with a little attention, you can use this to help your child.  Here's how.

1. Let him overhear you saying something positive about him to someone else. He may not take it in when you say it to him, but when he overhears you saying it to someone else, he believes it.

2. Stay in the moment.  If you're offering your child guidance about something, stick to what's happening right now.  "You always forget to ..." programs him to keep forgetting.  Just focus on how he can remember this time, and he'll start to see that he's a kid who remembers, more and more often.

3. Help your child see herself.  Research shows that kids' beliefs determine their behavior.  When you observe something positive about your child, tell her what you see:  "I notice you just keep plugging away at that... I notice you got frustrated but then you came back and tried again....I see you read that whole book yourself!...I've noticed that you are remembering to brush your teeth without being reminded most of the time now."

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change." -- Carl Rogers

"Our wounds can heal and become our source of power." -- Gail Larsen

I know you're still growing and learning, just like me.  How do I know?  Because you're still alive.  In this classroom called Life, the lessons we need most have a way of finding us.

Sages say that having children is one of the best paths to enlightenment because it stretches the heart and teaches us to love.  Parents certainly find lots of opportunities, every day, to dig deep in search of patience, calmness and compassion. Luckily, we're strongly motivated by our love for our children, so we stretch.

Sometimes, of course, we get stuck.  In resentment, or the insistence that our child should be different.  The good news is that it's never too late to improve things with our kids.  Even better, we can use these triggering interactions to heal ourselves and our relationship with our child.  Like our own live-in zen master or therapist, our children give us the perfect opportunity to grow, as long as we're willing to stretch our hearts.

Next time your child pushes your buttons, consider this:  Maybe this upset has as much to do with your own unmet needs and fears as it does with your child.  Maybe you could embrace yourself, your imperfections, and all your messy feelings with an open heart. Maybe you could remember that before we can change, we first need to accept the whole glorious mess of ourselves, as tenderly as we would our squalling baby.

Then remind yourself:

1. That taking responsibility doesn't mean blaming yourself. Parents, being human, are never perfect.  And children have an unerring ability to trigger us, expose our wounded places, draw out our unreasonable fears and angers.

2. Kids, like other humans, need to be fully accepted exactly as they are before they can change.

3. Acceptance of our feelings does not necessarily mean acting on them.  In fact, fully accepting our anger, grief, and other messy feelings means we don't HAVE to act on them. When we can "sit with" those feelings we don't have to "act out."

Almost magically, as we bless our wounds with compassion, we find that these hurt places inform us, motivate us, make us more compassionate, tender, patient parents. 

So forgive yourself for your past mistakes.

Thank your child for pushing your buttons. 

And move on together into a better future. 

“You don't get to choose how you're going to die. Or when. You can only decide how you're going to live. Now.”  -- Joan Baez.

If you learned today that you had 5 months to live, what would matter to you? 

Would you listen differently to your child?  Hug him or her more?

Would you turn off the TV?

Leave the dishes in the sink to play cards with your family before bed?

Would you want to have some deeper conversations with your children? 

Make sure they really felt the depth of your love for them? 

Share the wisdom you’ve learned about what really matters?

We’re rarely lucky enough to get this kind of warning.  But whether you have 5 years or 50 ahead, your life will be over before you know it.  So consider this your official notice. Why wait?

How do you want to spend the time you have left?

"Dear Dr. Laura -- You say that all emotion comes from our thoughts, and that we can change our thoughts and therefore change our emotions.  But you’ve also written that we need to acknowledge our emotions and "feel" them, rather than ignore or stuff them. I’m confused." -- Corinne

What a terrific question!  The simple answer is that there's a difference between honoring our feelings -- and preventing them. Here's why.

Once we’re experiencing an emotion, we’re feeling it in our bodies. We can’t avoid having it – so we need to move through it.

If we don’t like the way it feels and “stuff” it down, or try to ignore it, it pops out unmodulated.  For instance, a preschooler who announces that he hates his little brother and is corrected “You know you love your brother.  Give him a hug now” may well try to accommodate his parents’ expectation – but then find himself flying off the handle and clobbering his brother over some minor infraction.  And all parents know that when we're annoyed at our kid, sooner or later we're going to erupt. Repression doesn’t work.

Because most of us were brought up to fear our emotions, we all need practice in just sitting with them. The only way to get past an emotion is to move through it.  That means to breathe while we feel the emotion, cry, shake it out, giggle it out.  The amazing thing is that once we let ourselves feel, our emotions sweep through us and then dissipate, leaving us feeling more clear and happy. That's why toddlers are more cheerful and cooperative after a tantrum, as long as their parents help them feel safe letting all those scary feelings surface. (How do you help your child feel safe?  Just tell them it's ok to be sad or mad, and you're right there when they're ready for a hug.)

But many of us find that we’re repeatedly swamped with upsetting feelings.  Sure, we can spend all of our time breathing through them and releasing, but there’s another way – go to the source.  And the source of an emotion is always a thought (sometimes known as a belief, viewpoint, or conclusion).

So while we have no choice but to honor the emotions we’re already feeling, we can completely sidestep many upsetting emotions just by noticing the thought that’s giving rise to the emotion. 

"My kid's always forgetting his homework.  He'd lose his head if it weren't glued on. I have to think of better punishments to motivate him to remember."

"My son should love his brother. In our house people don't get mad at each other."

"My husband always wants sex. But I'm so exhausted. I'm a a lousy wife."

"My kid has constant tantrums and it's so embarrassing.  I know people think I'm a terrible mother.  I get so frustrated I can't help threatening her."

Once you start paying attention to your thinking, you'll be amazed at how many of the thoughts that show up in your mind are negative.  And how many of your observations and conclusions aren't even true.

Why give those thoughts and conclusions the power to determine how you feel and act?

Tomorrow: How to Question Your Thoughts