Cuprins
It happens that parents break down on children — slaps, slaps. And every single breakdown is a small catastrophe in which both the child and the adult need help. What do you need to know to avoid breakdowns? We share exercises that will teach parents to cope with emotions.
To categorically call slaps and cuffs violence and say that this is not possible is to add even more guilt and pain to a difficult situation. How to be?
STOP, impotence! It can be otherwise!
Behind any parental breakdown lies something important. And most often spanking and swearing — from impotence. This is impotence in relation to one’s own childhood, to the norms and rules learned in the parental family, to life in the totalitarian Soviet system. From your own emotions, fatigue, congestion, unresolved problems at work and with loved ones.
And of course, this impotence in educational measures. Parents speak directly about this: “We have no examples of how to raise a worthy person without a belt and flip flops.”
At the moment of a breakdown, a powerful emotional wave covers mom or dad
The simplest and strongest patterns of behavior awaken in the parent, for example, an aggressive reaction. It gives some relaxation, and thus the pattern is fixed. With each breakdown, he gains more and more power over the person.
Just forbidding yourself to scream, spank, hit is not enough. The reaction grows from the depths, and there it needs to be changed. To do this, it is important to build a strategy and implement it step by step.
A strategy for transitioning to a safe relationship with a child:
- Work with your own feelings and attitudes;
- Create a secure contact;
- Teach your child to obey.
Work with your own feelings and attitudes
Recognizing your emotions that led to the breakdown and learning how to live them more environmentally is the main task of working on yourself for parents. Essentially, it’s about learning to think about emotions right at the point they arise.
The following questions will help with this:
- What did you feel at the time of the breakdown? Anger? Rage? Resentment? Impotence?
- How did these feelings manifest themselves on the bodily level — did you want to stomp, wave your hands, clench your fists, increase your heart rate?
- What are these feelings like? In what other situations in the present or in the past have you encountered a similar reaction — in yourself or in other people?
It is best to keep a diary and answer these questions in writing.
At first, these will be recordings in the wake of a breakdown, but over time, you will learn to “catch” your feelings right at the moment of their occurrence. This skill greatly reduces the degree of reaction.
Behind parental impotence in a breakdown is most often a combination of fatigue and internal factors (traumatic situations from the past, childhood experience, dissatisfaction with life). Rest more, take care of yourself — the most common advice given by friends and colleagues. Yes, it’s important, but that’s not all.
Exercise can help parents with children
Psychologists have an obligation to undergo personal therapy. This is necessary in order not to confuse client stories with your own, in order to broaden your view of problems, maintain internal balance when meeting with strong emotions of other people. What do we have to do?
1. Emotionally close unpleasant and traumatic stories from your own life, including from childhood
There are different methods of how to do this, but the result is the same — the memory of a difficult event will cease to «cling», cause tears and difficult conditions. You can tell the story to a close, supportive person over and over again. Or write down your thoughts and feelings in a diary, draw. There are many professional approaches to healing trauma, you can turn to a specialist.
2. Learn to look at the situation from the side
There is a special exercise for this. For example, in a store where you are usually a little annoyed by a line or a saleswoman, try to imagine that all this is happening on TV. You are just watching a news story. Try not to get involved, find a «magic wand» — count the dots on the wallpaper, consider the pattern on the floor.
Having practiced on simple situations, you can try more complex ones. Imagine whining «Mom, I want ice cream!» Also a TV show. Do not turn on, find a distraction for your emotions.
3. Be able to withstand the strong feelings of children
I’ll give you an example. The child scratched his knee and cries, he is very upset, it hurts. Mom is also upset and scared, wants to calm the child as soon as possible and says: “Don’t cry, it’s all over! Here’s some candy for you!» As a result, the child eats candy, everyone calmed down.
However, both the child and the mother safely avoided contact with their feelings.
And another example. The same child, the same knee. Mom gets in touch with the feelings of the child: “Yes, you are in pain and you are upset, but this is how it happened — let me help you calm down, and then we will buy a band-aid and treat your knee.” Mom endures the pain and resentment of the child and helps him cope with his feelings, naming and accepting them.
By following these recommendations, you will be able to calmly relate to moments of disobedience, whims, tantrums, whining, learn to maintain your inner state, despite fatigue, and more effectively help the child in solving his needs. It is quite possible to do something on your own by picking up books and articles. Especially difficult problems are best solved together with a family psychologist.
Create a secure contact
Attachment theory proves that a child needs consistent parental behavior, this creates internal security, and there will be less impotence in his adult life.
Sanctions for disobedience and a pleasant pastime should be deliberate and consistent. For example, parents introduce a rule and a sanction: “If you don’t clean the room, you don’t play the console.” And each time it is necessary to monitor the implementation of the rule — consistently. When you don’t get out once and there is no sanction, this is already inconsistent.
Or, for example, there is a tradition on Saturdays to visit your grandmother for a delicious feast. This happens every Saturday, except in exceptional cases — consistently.
Of course, entertainment and gifts are also spontaneous — for joy. And consistent — for internal security
Joy in a relationship is also important. Remember what you most like to do with your child? Fooling around or hugging? Do crafts? Watch educational films together? Read? Do it more often!
Relying on values helps to consciously build contact. Think about what values are behind your parenthood — family, care or joy? What actions can you broadcast them to children?
For example, for you, family value is caring for each other. How can you teach this care to your children? Of course, by their own example — taking care of themselves, of a partner, of elderly parents, helping charitable organizations. And then the family dinner can become not a formal gathering of the family, but a place where children learn to care.
Teach your child to obey
Often the reason for the breakdown is the disobedience of children. One mother said: “The first few times I calmly told him not to climb on the cabinet, then three more times I shouted it, and then I had to spank!” Mom in this situation simply did not know how to influence her son.
Listening is as important a skill as speaking or reading. After all, we teach our children various useful things and do not think that they themselves should be able to do this. But often we do not teach them obedience, but immediately demand the result!
How to teach a child to obey?
- Gradually and consistently introduce a system of rules and consequences.
- You can teach obedience in a game or in a fairy tale — using the example of toys or fairy-tale characters, you can show the work of rules and consequences.
- You can contact a specialist in the correction of child-parent interaction for professional methods on how to teach a child the skill of obedience.
Sometimes it seems that powerlessness is inseparable from parenthood. Indeed, there are situations in which we — parents — can not do anything. But this does not apply to our failures, such problems are completely solvable.