Calm yourself so you can think
There are many distressing situations you face as a parent. Perhaps your two year old has bolted out the front door toward the road or your twelve year old told you to shut up. When you get excitable and experience intense emotions you must wait to respond until the emotion settles back down. With your two year old you want to get them safely in your arms, you want to hold them tight. The important thing is don’t speak until you are calm. You are much more effective when calm because then you can think, not just react out of intense unbalanced feelings.
We are human and as parents get frustrated. If you yell or argue with your children you are not only teaching them to do the same thing but you are also adding fuel to their imbalanced emotional state.
Think about it, if you are in a panic or state of high alert and stress, you do not think clearly. Your adrenal glands are pumping cortisol to move you into a state of fight or flight. You need your whole brain with your emotions and your logic to make good decisions and take positive action.
Step 2 in action
You must always do whatever it takes to achieve a state of calm balanced energy, no anger, no frustration, no aggression in dealing with your children. Easier said than done but if you think about step 1 your goal of maintaining a connection it is easier. That is what you focus on and then you realize if you are out of balance emotionally you are not going to connect in a positive way with your child.
If an older child becomes aggressive with a younger child I am not suggesting you refrain from intervening. You do need to intervene, calmly and quietly, without words and block negative behaviors by slowly, calmly stepping in front of the aggressor and gradually moving toward them to separate them from the other child. You only take one step toward the aggressor and then wait for them to back off. No words, just calm body intervention.
Think about that tall, calm non-negotiable body language you practiced standing in front of the mirror. No anger or hostility. Remember if you are not calm you are only adding fuel to the fire of their response. You don’t want to chose that road.
All responses to your interventions need to come by your children choosing the appropriate action, to settle down and back away. If you pick them up and force them to back off you have used intimidation and your physical strength to overpower them. You teach them that intimidation is what to do when you don’t like something.
Any touch you use would best be to block aggression and keep everyone safe. The better you become with expressing yourself through standing tall, calm and in control the more positive your influence will be.
“It takes too long!”
It may seem as if this strategy takes forever to accomplish. However, it is time very well spent because it will be clear that you will not accept aggressive acting out. When you give a calm, clear short directive, i.e. back away or stop and then move into calm action to block the unwanted behavior, you establish your calm balanced boundaries and limitations.
Whenever possible you will try to avoid potential melt downs by making sure that the basics are taken care of with a consistent eating time, consistent sleep and consistent exercise to release and burn off pent up energy. However it is inevitable, no matter how well you prepare as a parent, that your children will have melt downs. These are a part of our children letting us know that they feel overwhelmed, out of control and are not managing their frustrations well. It is a time for teaching and coaching from a calm balanced emotional state.
Being calm and balanced means you will wait to achieve your goal for them to calm down and correct their behaviors. Your expectation and tone need to be clear and direct so your child has no question that this is serious. You want to avoid any reinforcement of misbehavior. This means no holding, soothing, loving behaviors from you UNTIL your child has regained control and completed a short consequence based on their age (rule of thumb is 1 minute for each year of age).
When it seems that this approach takes too long think about how much energy is lost in being out of balance yourself and yelling. What happens is that now your children yell back, the escalation begins and with each escalating episode things get worse and the battles go on longer. If however you stay calm, your child has less to react to and is more likely to calm down because you are calm. This is when things can get resolved as long as you don’t reignite the fires of the battle.
It is well worth the time you take because next time it should take even less time. One new success builds on the last success. Choosing calmness is choosing a much better future and less drain from negative emotions. Negative emotions are exhausting; positive emotions are energizing.
