Εκρήξεις οργής

(σελίδα στα Ελληνικά υπό κατασκευή)

by Maja Zilih

It is a lovely Saturday morning and you and your three year old daughter decide to go to the supermarket. Nothing can ruin your mood - you are relaxed and delighted that it’s the weekend again, time that you devote to yourself and to your family. The girl is also joyful and playful, making funny faces at you, and giggling from the child seat of a shopping cart.

While you are going over the shopping list and comparing the prices, your daughter’s sight suddenly falls on a shiny doll of a brand new series, just the one she has recently seen on TV! She gets instantly excited about it, forcefully pulling your arm, demanding that you buy it. You try to explain that she already has too many dolls, and before you know it, the request has turned into a hysterical outcry and you can see clearly that she is about to have another one of those you always desperately hope to prevent – Temper tantrum!

Your lovely morning quickly turns into chaos with your mind racing and heart pounding while your little angel is kicking her legs and arms so forcefully that it becomes unsafe for her to stay in the cart. She is also screaming - with each breath more loudly – and she shows absolutely no sign of stopping. People are looking at you from all around. The more you talk and try to convince her otherwise, the louder she gets, and you are stuck there with a cocktail of agitation, nervousness and overwhelming embarrassment. You feel like the whole world is staring, thinking how badly your child behaves, and worse yet, what an incompetent parent you are!

Tantrums are the nightmare for most parents, especially when they happen in public places. Yet learning how to deal with a tantrum in supportive and caring way has many benefits for the child and the parent alike. It has an incredibly positive impact on the present and future relationship between the two. This process of learning may take weeks, months or even years, because it entails us, adults, working on our selves - our “issues” and our level of awareness. But that is why the process is also very rewarding – it helps us evolve each step of the way.

Initially we need to understand this: Had tantrums not been necessary in the child’s development, they would not have existed in the first place. Nature would not have provided the ability to rage and scream to a small human being unless that served some kind of a purpose. So we will next look at the functions it serves (why tantrums happen) and what we can do when they happen (how to react to a tantrum). Finally, we shall see what is better to avoid with ongoing tantrums and how important it is to nurture ourselves in the process of learning.

WHY CHILDREN HAVE TANTRUMS (some of the reasons)

- To resolve shock or trauma from the PAST (e.g. pre-natal, birth trauma or infanthood trauma) The child who is processing something from the past is not capable of articulating this, or even understanding it intellectually. He will be triggered by the present event and react to something that happened in the past. For example, a stranger may approach your child in a fast and sudden manner to greet him and to amuse him. The regression takes place and the child’s body remembers his birth - being suddenly taken out of the warm, nurturing environment of his mother’s womb by a doctor (stranger) performing a Caesarean section. Emotional release that perhaps did not happen then because the child was in too much shock, will occur now. Therefore, this is your child’s chance for healing and not having to drag the effects of the traumatic event into adulthood.

- To deal with the present-day stress and trauma. This includes all forms of abuse, insufficient holding, parents fighting, neglect, difficulty to communicate something in words, developmental frustrations, high expectations from adults, witnessing violence on film and many, many more.

- To release tension from too much stimuli. Over-stimulation may occur due to something as innocent as having many people at the house for a birthday party. Plenty of input seeks the relative output.

HOW TO REACT TO A TANTRUM

For us to take aware action, our response to somebody else’s behaviour needs to begin with scanning our own self. So a good starting point is to become aware of our feelings that the child’s tantrum triggers in us. We can work on this while the tantrum is happening or separately from it. It will be very beneficial for us too.

For most parents though, staying calm through the storm and facilitating the child’s healing release is easier said than done. For this reason I next offer some of the suggestions for those hard times.

- Become aware of that specific moment when you realise that your child will likely throw a tantrum. Try to detect that moment, even if just for a split second. It is the moment that you feel a dark cloud coming over your head. It is the moment your body and mind protest against the present situation. At that exact point, take a full conscious breath in and out. Scan your body and find areas where you feel contracted and tense. Breathe into those areas. Relax.

- Physical safety: Make sure that your child is physically safe to move in all directions without injuring herself, you or others. A room, a car, a restroom, anything that gives a little bit of privacy with the child would do. But if that is not possible, try to see if you can be comfortable with the child’s tantrum wherever you find yourself, even if there are people around. Whoever knows kids, knows tantrums too.

- Emotional safety: Your role is NOT to make the child instantly feel better. Your role is to provide physical and emotional safety for the tantrum to occur. Stay close to your child by being aware, attentive and compassionate. Avoid adopting suggestive or authoritarian stance (including praise for stopping!). If the child is crying and raging, her body knows exactly what to do without interference from your behalf.

- Remind yourself of how important this is for your child. Remember that venting frustration, however ear-piercing for you, is healthy for her. Acknowledge that she is already in pain. Not expressing does not mean that the pain will miraculously vanish. It will only shift from conscious to unconscious level. It will accumulate and eventually results in more pain.

WHAT TO AVOID WHEN TANTRUM HAPPENS

- Avoid punishments. Punishment as a method of discipline is finally being overcome by today’s psychology schools. It is considered ineffective, counter-productive and highly damaging for the child’s emotional health and confidence.

- Avoid praise, rewards and distractions. Offering a gift may alter the child’s behaviour for the time being, but the pain will wait to come out at some later point. Distracting the child with something pleasant teaches her that problems and feelings should not be dealt with as they come, but that one needs to look the other way. It creates a pattern of avoiding real feelings, and gives ground to tendencies to swallow and repress negative emotions by using something irrelevant, such as consumption items.

As a final word, we may observe that, when we allow the tantrums to occur in the way nature intended it, children come out of them relaxed and happy. It is then crystal clear that the expression that proceeded was no effort on the child’s behalf to “manipulate” the parent, or to act violently. It was simply a necessary output, a release as natural as urinating for instance. As for the violence, it is actually much less likely that the children will show violent behaviour if they are lovingly held and cared for while they express their pain, rather than punished or neglected.

BE KIND TO YOURSELF

- If you find these principles interesting and try to apply them but don’t quite manage, don’t frustrate yourself about it. No one teaches parents how to be parents, and changing our old patterns takes time, effort and patience.

- If you have strong emotional reaction to your child crying and raging, you may want to explore your own childhood, with a help of a friend, therapist, or on your own. Find someone you are comfortable and safe with to express the way you feel about how You were treated when you had (or tried to have) tantrums. This may give you valuable insights about reacting the certain way with your own child.

- Again and again, be patient with yourself. Your conditioned mind produces reactions because of the way they were shaped by all the adults and all the events around you while you were growing up. Acknowledge your willingness to work on yourself today. These patterns, which often pass on from one generation to the next totally unnoticed, You are actually questioning and willing to change. That IS a big deal! It tells you that you are on the right path, the path of evolving and connecting with YOU that is beyond that shaped and conditioned mind, YOU that embraces awareness, kindness and natural compassion.

Images borrowed from:

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2008/08/26/temper-tantrums-revisited

http://ag.udel.edu/extension/fam/gb/20month/gb-20m.htm

http://www.diyfather.com/node?page=28

http://www.professorpoop.com/comment/reply/26

http://artfulwriter.com/hug_a_cat.jpg