4. Remember that anger is a defence against deeper emotions, like fear, hurt or sadness
When your child expresses anger, he’s not being rude. He’s defending himself against feeling those more vulnerable emotions of hurt or fear. Acknowledge your child’s anger, but then go under it to empathise with the deeper emotions spurring the anger. Feeling those deeper emotions will make your child’s defensive anger unnecessary.
What about “hate”? Don’t get distracted. Your child is just throwing the nuclear option at you to show you how upset he is. Hate is not a feeling at all, but a “position” or a stance we assume to protect ourselves. Empathise as if your child was simply expressing anger, which he is.
“You say you hate the new baby? I hear you. Sometimes you get really mad at her just for being here. And I see how mad you are at me, too, for spending time with the baby. You liked it better when it was just you and me. You feel so sad that things are different now and I am so busy with the baby. Come snuggle with me and I will hold you and you can tell me your sad and mad feelings. When you’re ready I will kiss your nose and toes and we can play baby games, just you and me, like we did when you were a baby”.
Hate is not a feeling at all, but a “position” or a stance we assume to protect ourselves.
Why this encourages emotional intelligence:
- Since many parents had scary experiences with anger as young children, we’re often frightened of our children’s anger. Letting the child know that he isn’t a bad person for feeling rage helps him accept his anger as normal and move through it, rather than getting stuck in it.
- Most of us don’t understand that anger is a defence, so it scares us. Helping kids recognise what’s behind their anger gives them the tools to dissolve it so they aren’t driven to lash out.
5. When a desire can’t be granted, acknowledge it and grant it through “wish fulfilment”
It’s amazing how often you can get through an impasse by giving your child his wish in his imagination. Partly this is because it shows you really do care about what your child wants and wish you could make him happy. But there’s another, fascinating reason. Research shows that the power of the mind is so great that imagining that our wish is fulfilled actually satisfies us for the moment, meaning the part of our brain that shows satisfaction actually looks satisfied on a brain scan! Giving your child his wish in imagination releases some of the urgency behind it so that he’s more open to alternatives.
“You wish you could have a cookie. I bet you could gobble ten cookies right now! Wouldn’t that be so yummy?!”.
Then find a way to meet the deeper need: “I think you’re hungry. It’s almost time for dinner but you can’t wait. Let’s find a snack that makes your body feel better”.
Why this encourages emotional intelligence:
- All of us have desires that can’t be granted. Learning a repertoire of ways to manage those desires constructively, as well as of managing other needs and feelings, is an important coping tool for any child’s emotional intelligence toolkit.
6. Don’t take it personally, and resist the urge to escalate or retaliate
Your child has big feelings. They aren’t about you, even when he’s yelling “I hate you!”. It’s about your child: their tangled up feelings, their difficulty controlling themselves, their immature ability to understand and express their emotions. When your daughter says “You NEVER understand!”, try to hear that as information about her – at this moment she feels like she’s never understood – rather than about you. Model emotional self-management by simply taking a deep breath and trying to see it from her perspective. Remind yourself that it’s hard to be a kid. She doesn’t yet have the internal resources to manage her emotions – but you do, right?
Why this encourages emotional intelligence:
- Our job as adults is always to calm the emotional storm, rather than escalating it. How else will our child learn to do this for themselves?
- When you’re emotionally generous to your child, you’re demonstrating that she isn’t perfect, but you love her anyway – even when she’s at her worst. That’s the unconditional love that every child needs to thrive.
Tough? Yes, because most of us find it challenging to manage our own feelings so that we can tolerate our children’s unruly emotions.
But have you noticed the silver lining? We get a chance to grow in emotional intelligence ourselves. Which makes us happier, healthier people. So if, by chance, you got swatted instead of understood when you were a kid, it’s never too late to have a happy childhood!
Originally published here.
Dr. Laura Markham is the founder of PeacefulParentHappyKids.com and author of Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids,Peaceful Parent, Happy Siblings and her latest book, the Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids Workbook.
