Parenting a three-year-old requires a variety of skills, but none has been so challenging as the need to grow in my ability to empathize.
I’ve always considered myself to be a very empathetic person. I try to be a good listener in my relationships, caring about the emotions of others. [Editor’s note: Anyone who knows Ann will testify how true this is!] The difference is that usually, in my adult relationships, I am not required to empathize in order to defuse a tantrum. This is definitely a growing edge for me.
Lucy is a girl who has very strong, intense feelings — making her a lot like me, frankly. Either we have similar personalities, or I’m just more like a three-year-old than I’d like to admit. Most of the time, Lucy experiences life with joyful passion. But sometimes, her unfulfilled desires overflow into a rage of tears and hollering. The party dress must be worn to bed! The car seat is unsuitable! The mittens cannot be borne!
When Lucy was younger, I was often successful with a variety of meltdown-averting tactics: offering an alternative, distracting her from the problem, turning things into a game. More often than not, these old strategies aren’t working, and we end up with a full-blown power struggle on our hands. These moments are the crucible of my parenting skills, because there is nothing I want more than to just say, “No! Absolutely not!” to whatever request is being made during these battles of will. But I’m trying to choose a better way.
Recently, I’m trying a new approach. When Lucy starts to have a freak-out meltdown, instead of digging in my heels and getting nowhere, I’m trying to drop everything I’m doing, sit down on the floor, close my eyes, and talk to Lucy about how I imagine she is feeling. This can feel a little repetitive, and it’s certainly time-consuming. But I just try to put into words what I think she’s feeling, sometimes in her own words, but sometimes in a way she herself may not be able to.
One of the first times I did it, Lucy continued hollering and crying and pushing me away, so I finally got up and left for a couple of minutes. But when I returned, she said, “Mama, I want you to sit on the floor again so I can have a snuggle in your lap!” So we did that.
My read on the situation is that Lucy’s emotions just completely overwhelm her sometimes. Often, this is because Mama or Papa is forbidding (or insisting on) a particular behavior, so she lashes out at us. But in her heart, she really wants to be close to us, and she is just having a hard time working through the frustration and disappointment.
The other day, we had an amazing breakthrough. We had returned from a neighbor’s New Year’s Day party, and Lucy didn’t want to take off her party dress (which she adores), even though it was way past her bedtime. After trying a variety of techniques to make the idea of pajamas appealing, I just had to take off the dress, ending with a furiously crying Lucy lying on the floor. I left for a minute or two to get my own emotions under control, and then when I returned, deployed my empathy-on-the-floor policy. After talking for awhile, Lucy came and sat on my lap, and then she said. “Mama, I want to knock over that basket of toys.”
“Lucy,” I said, “you are so mad that you want to knock over that basket of toys.”
“Yes,” she said. “You come and help me.”
We ended up tipping over a medium-sized basket of toys, which wasn’t very satisfying. Then I told Lucy about how I sometimes punch a pillow when I’m really mad. This idea appealed to her, so she got a pillow, but then devised her own system of whacking the pillow on the floor to relieve her tension. After she did it a few times, she gleefully exclaimed, “I got the mad out! I got the mad out! My heart feels happy now! Ha ha!”
I’m so proud of Lucy learning to “get the mad out” and experience her emotions fully, but not be mastered by them. And I’m really grateful for this little success that keeps me focused on my floor-empathy policy. It definitely takes discipline for me to do it at times, but I think it is worth the struggle, both for my own growth and Lucy’s.
What a good idea, Ann. I think 3 can be a very challenging age – they are old enough to not be easily distracted from the thing they want (thus the fit throwing that can go on and on), but not yet old enough to put their emotions into words (we rarely experience these kind of fits with Benjamin anymore, who is 4 1/2). One technique we regularly employ is a self-directed time out. Basically if either of the older children is completely out of control, throwing a fit, we calmly take them to their bedroom and tell them to stay in there until they are ready to be calm again. We don’t force them to stay there or set any sort of time limit, we are just offering them a safe place to vent (safe for them and safe for the other kids who often end up getting hit or kicked if they come too close to the one throwing a fit). After a few minutes they’ll inevitably come back downstairs calmer, ready to talk through what’s going on. I’ve often heard Benjamin in his room kicking the wall or door – I guess that’s his way of “getting the mad out”. Ella prefers just crying and a bit of screaming.
Sometimes they have to journey to their room more than once before they are ready to talk about what’s going on, but it usually works pretty well. It’s helpful for me too, because I’m much more able to keep a handle on my emotions when I’m not in the same room as the one throwing the fit.
Ann — have you heard of the book called “How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk”? It’s similar to what you’re talking about and I think it might reinforce some of the things you’re trying to do with Lucy.
You are a lot more empathetic than me! I have a zero tolerance with temper tantrums and as soon as my kids throw one, the automatically don’t get what they want. I tell them in a loving way that that is not how you get what you want and that I understand that they want XYZ, but this is not how you get it. I really love your floor-empathy idea — I am going to have to try that myself!
It’s interesting to hear your strategies. Abby doesn’t get mad – she gets sad. Which might just be a different means of expressing the same feeling that Lucy gets of being overwhelmed by her emotions. I think a very common problem with girls/women in general. We send Abby to her room to control her emotions and calm down. We also talk about coming back with a good attitude and ready to talk. I definitely agree that the separation from the situation helps everyone to keep our cool. What helps me persevere is that I know that dealing with her emotions appropriately now will, Lord willing, save us a bigger problem later when she’s older.
Dealing with this emotional self control issue with Abby has motivated me to start talking about the fruits of the Spirit from Galatians 5. In the near future I’m going to hang them on our wall so she can have a tangible, visual reminder.
Kindra, I absolutely *love* How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk. It is my very favorite parenting book — and it is next on my list of book reviews for this blog!
Nicole and Jolinta, I agree with the self-directed time-out thing. I do this sometimes with Lucy, and it ocassionally helps, but most of the time she seems to want help working through her emotions, like a sounding board. I think I might have an extrovert on my hands. :)
Ann, because I’ve heard you speak so highly of the How To Talk book, I checked it out from the library. Well, it’s waiting for me to finish a couple of other books before I can get to it. But the other night, while I was reading the girls their bedtime books, I looked over to see Abi sitting on my bed reading the How To Talk book herself! Maybe soon she’ll say, “Mom, I see you really want me to get my pajamas on. You really want that. Tell me more.” :)
I LOVE this! It’s such a great story, Ann. Good for you and for Lulu. I think you’ve both got gobs of emotional intelligence.