Once you figure out what soothes your kid, it works 60% of the time, every time.
Just now, my 3yo was on a tirade in our basement: knocking stuff over, mean mugging, doing sumo squats, screaming in his monster voice. Sometimes that’s actually a good release for him, but I could tell he was working himself up more. I asked if he wanted to do some water painting, & his demeanor changed immediately.
If you establish a calming corner as a safe place to reset instead of a punishment, kids will see it as a positive thing. (The way I suggest it matters a lot—if I let frustration creep into my voice, he’s a lot more resistant. It also helps a LOT that he has the same setup at preschool. Another one that works great for my 3yo is this saucer swing. His 6yo brother needs totally different stuff.)
For those who worry this kind of parenting will raise entitled brats, this is very important: being gentle/respectful doesn’t mean no boundaries or consequences, & it DEFINITELY doesn’t mean preventing them from ever having to deal w/ difficult feelings. In the basement before this, I made it clear that was not OK behavior & asked if he wanted to pick up the stuff he knocked over right away or once he calmed down. This time, he happily picked it up immediately before coming upstairs with me. It does NOT work like that all the time, but if he chose “later,” we would have gone back downstairs once he was calmer & picked the stuff up together.
The idea is to be a safe landing place for our kids when they are overwhelmed, rather than making them feel like there’s something wrong with them. The biggest revelation for me when I started my conscious parenting journey was learning to separate feelings from behavior. Kids need to know that even when you set a boundary around their behavior, you’re not going to abandon them to deal with the feelings behind the behavior alone. It’s not easy to parent this way, but it is incredibly rewarding when your kids start learning to articulate their feelings & needs & self-regulate with less & less help.
BONUS: I’m fairly certain my kids have ADHD like their dad & me, & these skills are CRUCIAL to them being able to cope in school & society without developing crippling anxiety & learning they should mask their true selves in social situations.
BOGO: You get to heal your own inner child in the process, which doesn’t feel fun in the moment but will make you 10x happier & freer in the long-run.
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