Handling your emotions when your a frustrated kid is difficult and many kids are prone to extreme behavior, including very extreme statements, while in this state. Sharon Peters from Parents Helping Parents has shared a story with us to give some tips on how to react to these.
All children get upset but some young people blurt out dramatic or alarming statements in the middle of a tantrum or cry. “I hate everything.”, “I hate YOU!”, “You don’t love me.”, You’re a terrible mother.”, or “I hate myself.” are just a few examples.
Although one-way for a little one to “blow off some steam,” when these kinds of proclamations are common they can worry parents and increase anxiety for children. I often suggest that moms and dads address the problem with attempts to focus on the actual cause of the upset (often not what the child is talking about) while avoiding back and forth arguments about the electrifying phrase. Here is a story about some things one parent tried that helped.
A dad I was talking to, Ian, often walked Tia, the younger of his 2 daughters, to school and put her to bed at night. As he often worked long hours he was happy to spend time at the beginning and end of each day with her. Unfortunately these moments frequently turned into difficult conversations as the 6 year old spent much of their time together making extreme statements that frustrated him.
Remarks such as “I hate everything about school.” “I hate myself and so does everyone else.” “You don’t love me.” or “You’re always mean!” became a disproportionately large part of their time together during the week.
Ian would disagree with, reassure, validate and/or try to calm Tia but everything he did seemed to make conversations longer and more difficult.
I suggested that Ian’s daughter was trying to get his undivided attention, something that was hard to come by given his long work hours and the necessity of spending time with everyone in the family whenever he was home.
We decided that he would try to avoid getting “entangled” in Tia’s proclamations and remember that she was missing him and seeking some special contact. He began to change his reactions by briefly empathizing with her concerns and then asking for specifics (not sweeping generalizations) from her day. He then tried hard to listen patiently to everything she said even if some details were “whiny” or made no sense. If things were overly negative he listened some more and then asked for some good things from her day as well. Every once in a while he shared some nice moments from his day too. Over time he stopped arguing and ended up listening more and talking less than he had before.
I also suggested that they plan a fun excursion together (no one else would be invited). Sometimes when children know that they will get a parent all to themselves their requests for negative or dramatic attention decrease.
Trying to steer clear of long dialogues about Tia’s exaggerated general complaints, exchanging details from their days and planning some quality time alone seemed to help.
Sharon C. Peters is the founder and director of Parents Helping Parents in Park Slope. Parents Helping Parents offers practical solutions to parents and parents and children through individual appointments arranged on an as needed basis. Topical workshops and ongoing groups also provide participants with opportunities to share their personal experiences and hear helpful perspectives. Sharon’s work is also published regularly in Brooklyn Family Magazine, blogs and at www.phponline.org.
She has an MA in Educational Psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University and since 1995 has met with hundreds of individual families and led workshops for many schools and community organizations. As a step, birth, adoptive, married and single mother, Sharon has parented five children, several coping with special needs.