This article discusses the influence parental reactions have on young children’s behavior and provides guidance on ways to respond that help children calm more easily and learn better coping skills.
Being the parent of a young child is an intensely emotional experience. There is the pure pleasure of cuddling, nuzzling, playing, laughing, exploring, and delighting in your baby’s daily growth and discoveries. And then there are the challenges—the moments of stress, anger, frustration, and resentment—at not knowing what a baby’s cry means and how to calm her, at the totally irrational demands of a toddler, or at the aggressive behavior of an older child toward a new baby. These experiences naturally evoke strong feelings that can be hard to handle.
But it is important to tune in to and manage these feelings because it is how you react in these moments that makes the difference in your child’s development. Your response impacts his ability to learn good coping skills and guides his future behavior. Imagine a 2-year-old who is falling apart because he can’t cope with the fact that you gave him his cereal in the blue bowl instead of his favorite red bowl (as unbelievably irrational as that might be— such is life with a toddler).
Reacting with anger and frustration is likely to further distress the child rather than help him calm and cope. Learning to manage your own reactions is one of most important ways you can reduce your own—and your child’s—distress. It also teaches children how to manage their own emotions—a skill that helps them do better in school and in building friendships and other relationships as they grow.
Managing strong, negative emotions is surely much easier said than done. But it’s worth the effort, because the payoff is huge, for you and your child. Here are some helpful guiding principles and strategies:
Tune in to your feelings.
Feelings are not right or wrong—they just are. It’s what we do with them that can be helpful or hurtful. When you get out of the business of judging your feelings, you can be more open to looking at and owning them–the first step in controlling and expressing feelings in useful ways. One dad so eloquently summed it up, going straight to the heart of the issue: “It’s important to learn to recognize your own triggers. It’s not fair to expect your children to deal with your baggage.”
We’re all human. It is the rare parent who wouldn’t be consumed with embarrassment, quickly followed by anger and resentment at a child, when, for example, at some family event she throws a fit for not getting the first piece of cake, while her adorable cousin is delighting everyone by helping to hand out the slices and taking the last one, so unselfishly, for herself.
Tuning in to your feelings allows you to make a conscious decision—instead of a knee-jerk reaction—about how best to respond. In this case, it might mean taking some deep breaths to clear your head, then calmly telling your child that you know she is disappointed, but it’s not possible to always go first and that she will be okay—communicating confidence in her ability to cope. Although remaining calm is hard work, the benefits are far-reaching and the payoffs extend far into the future.
Remaining calm allows you to stay connected with your child rather than increasing her distress by experiencing an emotional break with you; she feels understood, not shamed, which makes her more open to accepting the limit being set; and when you react calmly, it decreases the stress hormone in her own brain, which helps her calm more quickly. Staying calm also results in a lot less remorse for having lost control, and many fewer nights going to bed feeling like all you did that day was yell and stress on your kids—a common and painful experience for many parents.
Look at behavior in the context of your child’s development and temperament.
Having appropriate expectations is critical because the meaning you assign to your child’s behavior impacts how you manage your own emotions and reactions to the behavior at hand. If you see the behavior as manipulative, or to be purposefully hurtful (i.e., biting, hitting), then you are more likely to react in ways that escalate instead of calm your child.
And intense, angry reactions rarely result in teaching good coping skills. If, instead, you see these behaviors in the context of normal development, then you can approach your child with empathy, making it much more likely you will respond calmly and effectively.
Do the unexpected.
When every bone in your body is moving toward explosion at some outrageous demand or provocative behavior, it can be very effective for your child (and you!) to give her a big bear hug or do something silly. This can reduce the stress and tension of the situation, and doing something totally unexpected can also put a stop to the unwanted behavior. This is not coddling or giving in.
If your child is telling you he hates you because you won’t let him have 5 more minutes to play (and he hasn’t finished his game yet!—he just needs 5 MORE MINUTES!) and you approach him with a bear hug while saying, “It looks like you need a big mommy hug,” you are letting him know you hear his frustration and empathize with it.
You are not giving him five more minutes—which would be “coddling” or rescuing him from having to cope with a limit he doesn’t like. It may surprise you how this can turn the tides—doing the opposite of what he expects when he is in provocative mode. Or, don’t respond to his “bait” and just turn on some music and start to do a silly dance, all the way to the dinner table you are trying to transition him to. Simply say, “Join me,” and move along. It may sound hokey, but it can be very effective—and again relieve both his stress and yours.
Give yourself a time-out.
When you are having a hard time remaining calm in the presence of your child, be sure your child is safe (which might mean putting him in a pack ‘n’ play for a few minutes) and give yourself a minute or two to cool down. You might say: “Mommy needs some time to think about how I can best help you.”
This can be a very powerful strategy in that it throws a monkey wrench into the process, which can sometimes halt the child in his tracks. And it allows you to remain present even in the face of the negative emotional intensity these situations often arouse. It also serves as very powerful role-modeling for your child about how to manage strong emotions—exactly what you are trying to teach.
This gets you out of a reactive state and gives you time to think about the meaning of your child’s behavior and what you want him to learn from the experience. It’s much more likely you will come up with a response that sets the limit or guides your child’s behavior while remaining nurturing.
This strategy can be especially powerful when used together with your spouse or partner, especially when you are at odds about how to respond to your child: “Mommy and Daddy need to have a little pow-wow to think about how we can help you with this challenge.” This sends an important message to your child, beyond modeling self-control, that you are a thoughtful parenting team and are working together to help him learn to cope.
Managing strong negative emotions is surely much easier said than done. But it’s worth the effort, because the payoff is huge, for you and your child. As one wise parent put it: “How you react to things is how they’ll learn to react to things…. You have to be in control of yourselves if you want them to be in control of themselves.”
Remember: You can’t make your child do anything— eat, sleep, pee, poop, talk, or stop having a tantrum.
What you do have control over is how you respond to your children’s actions, as this is what guides and shapes their behavior. If throwing a tantrum results in extra TV time, a later bedtime, or simply getting more of your attention (a primary goal for older siblings dealing with major rivalry), your toddler is putting 2 and 2 together, making an important assessment: “Tantrums work! Excellent strategy! Put that one in the win column.”
Putting It All Together
The Scenario:
Three-year-old Jonah announces to his mother, Lauren, “You are the meanest mommy, and I hate you”, and then kicks her after Lauren tells him that the playdate is over—it’s time for Liam to go home.
Step 1—Tune in to your feelings:
Lauren is feeling furious and wants to say: “You are the most ungrateful child ever! Liam has been here for 2 hours and I have put aside everything I needed to do to supervise, make cookies with you, set up the painting project, etc., etc. It’s never enough!” But she knows reacting angrily will not teach her child anything and will just increase both of their distress. She takes some deep breaths and thinks through how to respond to help Jonah learn to manage his strong emotions and accept the limit.
Step 2—Tune in to and validate your child:
This is where having appropriate expectations comes in. Lauren reminds herself that at 3, children are still largely driven by their emotions and that the goal is to help Jonah learn to cope with life’s frustrations and disappointments. So she tells him calmly, “I know you are sad and angry that Liam has to go home. You have so much fun playing with him.
It is always hard when a playdate ends. But you will be okay.” It is very important to communicate that you have confidence that your child can handle his difficult feelings. When you swoop in to make it all better, you inadvertently send the message that he can’t handle disappointment, which makes it less likely he will learn this important skill.
Step 3—If your child throws out some bait, don’t take it:
Young children will use any strategy possible to get what they want, such as more TV time or extra dessert, or to avoid doing something they don’t like, such as getting dressed in the morning or brushing their teeth. The best way to eliminate behaviors you feel will not serve your child well in the real world is to ignore them.
So in this case, it means Lauren not responding to Jonah’s provocation, “You are the meanest mommy…” She doesn’t allow it to divert attention from the limit she is setting, which is usually the goal of throwing out some bait— to control other’s actions and avoid something the child is uncomfortable with.
Step 4—Set the limit and provide choices:
“It’s okay to be sad and angry, but it’s not okay to kick. Kicking hurts. I know you don’t want to hurt me, you’re just having a hard time controlling your body because you are so upset. So your choice is to take a break where you can calm your mind and body, or you can come help put the carrots into the salad for dinner.”
If Jonah can’t yet pull himself together, Lauren will just move on, showing him with her actions that she can tolerate his being unhappy and disappointed, and that she trusts he has the ability to calm himself. This leaves Jonah with the choice to stay upset or pull himself together and hang out with his mom.
Managing your own emotions helps you feel more in control and frees you to respond to even the most challenging behaviors calmly and effectively.
