Sometimes things get really hard. Especially as a parent, especially in a global
pandemic and its aftermath. This is especially true for parents of children with
ADHD, anxiety, and other behavioral and emotional disorders, because these
tend to be really intense kids to parent, so much so that friends and family
often are blissfully ignorant of just how hard it is behind the scenes.
As a psychologist who works with kids, it’s not uncommon for parents to
come to me at their wits’ end. If you sometimes find yourself thinking, “I don’t
want to be so angry with my child all the time, I know I need to be more
patient, it’s just emotionally really hard for me to do that right now,” know
that a) you’re not alone, and b) that’s a really good starting point. When we
make the unconscious conscious—when we realize what we need to do, even
if we’re not able to do it yet—we have planted the seeds of change.
Recognizing that something needs to change is more than half the battle.
Many parents come to me looking for tips and techniques to help change
their child’s behavior. Naturally, parents get frustrated by continued
misbehavior and want that behavior to change. What I try to help parents
realize, though, is: “I can only control myself, and maybe it’s actually me who
needs to change.” A lot of parents get in a rut—where the littlest thing your
child does will set you off, or where you’re just seething with anger and
resentment. Those phases are the ones where we’re usually most desperate
for our kid’s behavior to change.
But it's important to remember that it’s not fair for you to expect your child to
be the one to initiate the improvement in your relationship. As the adult and
the caregiver, it’s up to you to recognize when your connection with your
child is strained and go about building it back up. This can be especially hard
if you yourself were parented harshly or if you carry your own trauma. But you
can do hard things!
Let’s imagine for a second that there’s a mother who, after going through a
particularly rough patch with her daughter, realizes she is in a rut as a parent
and decides to break out of it. She knows it will be hard but she does it
anyway and comes out the other side a more compassionate, patient, and
understanding parent, with a stronger connection to her child. This is how
she might describe that journey:
“I knew I needed to start by working to change how I was labeling my
daughter’s behavior in my own mind. I realized I was doing a lot of blaming
her for her behavior and resenting her for how she changed our lives. I vowed
to myself to change my internal monologue and started saying things to
myself like, ‘She’s not giving me a hard time, she’s having a hard time’ and
‘This is harder for her than it is for me.’ I started repeating mantras like that to
myself, to help myself change the lens I used to view my child.
I then sat down and consciously listed the positive things about my child.
Since they weren’t coming easily to mind in that moment, I resorted to listing
things she wasn’t doing wrong that could be going worse. Like: not slamming
the door, not hurting the animals, not running in the street. Once I did that, I
noticed that she was actually doing positive things, I was just stuck in such a
negative rut with her that it was hard to see it. On hard days when it was
tough to find anything positive, I looked in on her when she was sleeping, I
looked at pictures of her as a baby, or I reflected on particularly treasured
memories. On those days, I needed to do anything that could get me in a
place of being able to connect with the love and care I have for her and to
help put me in a positive mindset about her.
The next thing I did was to start pointing out the positive things out loud to
my child: ‘Catching her doing something right.’ I needed to deliberately find
positive things to notice out loud to her so she could start feeling better about
herself, because me jumping on her every time she made a mistake was
certainly not helping either of us. I started saying things like, ‘I know things
have been tough at school, but at least you’re going. I really appreciate that,
because it must take a lot of courage to face walking into that building every
day.’ Or I noticed little things: ‘Thanks for going to bed when I asked, even
though you probably didn’t want to.’ I tried to find things to appreciate: ‘I’m
glad I get to drive you to school every day. I look forward to being in the car
with you for these 20 minutes every day.’ Or things from a while ago: ‘I was
thinking today about our trip to Yellowstone that summer when you were 5.
We had so much fun! I still smile whenever I think about you and that
squirrel!’ Even if there wasn’t a lot to praise, I tried to notice the absence of
negative things: ‘Hey, buddy, I just wanted to thank you for not slamming the
door when you came in. I appreciate that.’ Sometimes I would just focus on
arranging my face from a scowl into a smile and saying a genuine ‘thank you’
when she would pass me something at the dinner table or a ‘Hey! Glad you’re
home!’ when she first came home from school.
This was hard for me when I first started it, because the relationship with my
daughter had gotten to a really bad place and I was carrying so much
resentment. I needed to process that in my own therapy, and that freed me
up to focus on pointing out the positive with her. I started by trying to make 3
positive statements to hear each day. It was hard! But gradually I increased it
to 5, and then 10. Then I switched it up so that with every demand or criticism,
I made sure to make 5 positive statements to balance it out.
Once, I had gotten into such a negative rut that I made myself not make any
demands or issue any criticisms for a whole day and just kept repeating to
myself, ‘All positive, all the time.’ It was eye-opening to me to realize how
negative I had become toward my child once I vowed to go a day without
saying anything negative to her. I started to realize how little positivity was
coming out of my mouth on a daily basis.
It was also important for me to work toward being genuine with my praise,
and in doing so I found that my feelings began to change. The more I looked
for positive things about my child, the more I found, and the more genuine I
could be in noting them. Catching her doing something right ended up
changing my perspective so much, because once I could really see her efforts,
even when they fell short, it was a game changer for me. Instead of criticizing
her for being loud, I commented on her enthusiasm. Instead of getting
annoyed at her hyperactivity, I praised her for being so energetic and athletic.
And then she started living up to it! Ultimately, there was nothing else that
was going to change the relationship other than me, and once I realized that
and started taking responsibility for setting a new tone, it was amazing to me
how quickly things turned into a positive snowball. I started using more
humor and we started being able to laugh together. At one point, my
daughter said something nice unprompted to me, which hadn’t happened in
months, and I realized that kids are little mimics and she just really needed
me to model kindness and positivity. I could literally see the change
happening in her in response to my efforts. She was becoming less negative,
less angry, and more open to me. It was like watching a drooping plant perk
up after getting the water it desperately needs. It didn’t solve everything, but
it was a starting point.
From there, I tried to make sure that every new day was a fresh start. I let go
of the frustrations from the day before, and every day tried to start the day off
positively. I bit my tongue when I was tempted to bring up past frustrations or
to make comments like ‘There you go again’ or ‘I’ve told you this a million
times.’ I made sure the slate was wiped clean and tried to catch myself when I
was getting down on her for things that happened in the past, things she had
no control over now.
Then I started going out of my way to spend time with my daughter doing
things we both enjoy. I hadn’t realized how much negative attention I was
giving her. It felt at the time like she got tons of attention. In fact, it felt like
she was an attention hog! But then I realized that so much of that was
scolding, correcting, and redirecting. She didn’t get much delight or
enjoyment from me. I don’t think she felt very valued or appreciated. I’m sure
I wasn’t showing her on a daily basis that I enjoyed her, because I was at a
point where even though I loved her very much, I didn’t always like her!
But that started to change when I started intentionally setting aside time to
do fun things together. We went fishing, we went out for hamburgers, we saw
Marvel movies. These were all things we both enjoyed, and I made sure to set
aside any frustrations that had been building and start fresh, enjoying each
outing and sharing my excitement with her—and my joy in being with her.
Even if I had to manufacture it a bit in the beginning, eventually I really did
start looking forward to spending that time together.
And it didn’t have to be big events or spending money on her. I started trying
to set aside 10 minutes each day just to give my attention to her fully,
proactively, and positively—no criticism, no teaching, no instructions. I’d let
her teach me a new video game she was obsessed with or show me a video
she liked. It didn’t matter what it was, the important thing was for me to set
aside the time in my own mind to just show up for her, with no agenda.
I also started looking for ways to be silly, to play. Sometimes in the crush of
work and parenting and keeping up the house, it was easy to be grim all the
time. I approached parenting the same way I approached a dentist
appointment—something to get through. But when I let go of some of the
unrealistic expectations I had for my daughter and for myself, it opened up
room for us just to be silly together. Instead of making demands, I turned
elements of our daily routine into a game. I took time to crank the music and
sing with her in the kitchen or have an impromptu dance party.
It wasn’t always a bed of roses, but when things started going better it was
easier to notice the progress we’d made. Then, I was able to notice when our
connection was getting frayed, and at those times I’d go out of my way to
double down on the relationship. If I noticed myself getting short with her, I’d
take some time out for myself—go on a walk, talk with a friend. Then I’d come
back and suggest something that could help us get reconnected. Maybe
tonight we can have dessert first! Maybe tonight we can take some time to
watch cat videos, even if it means all the homework doesn’t get finished!
Maybe tonight we can make sure we have 10 minutes to snuggle on the
couch before bedtime! All these little repairs went a long way to getting us
reconnected when we needed it.
Sometimes I had to fight back against my internal voice that said, ‘Don’t let
her get away with that!’ or ‘Don’t let her walk all over you!’ I started to realize
that a lot of that came from my own anxiety, of worrying about what would
happen when she gets to ‘the real world.’ But then I realized that she doesn’t
have to be in the real world yet—she’s still a kid. And borrowing that worry
from the future doesn’t help either of us. I need to parent this little person I
have right in front of me, right now.
Gradually I started to recognize those voices as echoes of my past—of
messages I had gotten about parenting that never served me very well, as a
parent or as a child! And gradually the voice that started to replace it
murmured, ‘She’s doing the best she can.’ Or, ‘You don’t make a child behave
better by making her feel worse.” Or, ‘Don’t take it personally.’ I started to have
more patience—with my daughter and with myself!
I look back from where I’m at now, and I can feel such compassion for where I
was then when I was in such a rut—when it just felt hard, hard, hard and it
didn’t feel like there was ever going to be anything past the hard. It is such a
lonely, hopeless place. But now that I have seen the benefits of helping my
daughter feel safe with me, helping her feel my delight in her, helping her feel
connected to me, I can see how important it is as a parent to shake myself out
of any rut I might be tempted to fall into.”
If it feels overwhelming to think about being the change you wish to see in
your relationship with your child, you may need to really be intentional about
filling your own cup first. In fact, I often recommend to parents who are very
stressed that the number one thing they can do as a parent is to focus on
taking care of themselves. As the flight attendants say, “Put on your own
oxygen mask first!” As much as possible, when things are hard for you as a
parent, you need to make it a priority to take care of yourself: go to therapy,
open up to a partner or friend and share your frustrations, make getting good
sleep a priority, go on a walk, eat well, spend time with friends who build you
up, take time alone. I will sometimes recommend to homeschooling parents
that they find a cooperative or trade child care with another homeschooling
family so that the homeschooling parent gets a regularly scheduled break,
because it’s not sustainable to be an on-call parent 24/7/365! Stop and think
about whatever it is that will help you replenish yourself, and make it a priority
so you can increase your reserves of patience and compassion and get out of
the ruts all parents find ourselves in.
Here are some mantras that may resonate for you (with credit to the collected
wisdom of the Facebook group Parenting with Connection):
· “Catch her doing something right.”
· “I can do hard things.”
· “Don’t react. Calm down, then respond.” Or, “Respond rather than react.”
· “Be the guide, not the judge.” Or, “Be the calm, not the storm.”
· “It’s not personal, it’s trauma.” Or, “It’s not personal, it’s brain wiring.”
· “Relationship is everything!”
· “Don’t sweat the small stuff. And it’s almost all small stuff.”
· “Kids do well if they can.” Or, “She would do better if she could.”
· “It’s my job to help her regulate.”
· “She’s afraid of failing” or “She’s feeling out of control.”
· “Hurting people hurt people.”
· “What is the why behind all this?”
· “QTIP: Quit taking it personally.”
· “Peace starts with me.”
· "It is not me against my child, but me and my child against their history (or
against the situation)."
· “It’s my job to share my calm, not join her chaos.”
· “Mad equals sad.”
· “I’m the adult: take the high road.”
· “It’s not all riding on you or this moment - just breathe.”
· “It’s dysregulation, not disrespect.”
· “Kids are bad at stuff” (LOL!)
· “It’s OK. I’m OK. There is no danger here.”
· “My child’s behavior is not a reflection of my parenting ability.”
· “She’s only eight.” “She’s only three.”
· “I’m on her team.”
· “You don’t make a child behave better by making her feel worse.”
· “My child isn’t giving me a hard time, she is having a hard time.”
· “Serenity now!” Or, “Just keep swimming”
· “The calmer I am, the more effective I’ll be”
· “Will this make my child feel safe, heard and precious?”
· “This moment matters.”
· “I am the adult. I need to be bigger, stronger, wiser, and kind.”
· “This is harder for my child than it is for me right now.”
· “She is not doing this to me.”
· “The responsibility to act like an adult in the parent/child relationship lies
100% with me.”
· “Every thunderstorm eventually runs out of rain.”
· “She’s not enjoying this. If she could do better, she would.”
· “I am her safe place.”
· “This, too, shall pass.”
· “Fix the problem, not the blame.”
· “Find the reason behind the behavior.”
· “Tomorrow is a new day.”
· “I am doing the best I can. That’s all anyone can do.”
· “Behavior = Communication.”
· “What’s the need that’s not being met?”
· “Let it go” (sung in Elsa’s voice!)
· “DARN: Deep breath, Ask curious questions, Remain calm, Need to find out
why.”
· “Set a beautiful example.”
· “She’s showing me right now how much she’s hurting.”
· “There’s power in the pause.”
· “Be the change I wish to see in my children.”
· “I only control me.”
· “It’s a marathon, not a sprint.”
· “Connect before you correct.”
· “Breathe deeply. Then do it again.”
· “Courage, dear heart.”
댓글