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<\/p>\nParenting 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. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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!<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.” <\/p>\n
“Lucy,” I said, “you are so mad that you want to knock over that basket of toys.” <\/p>\n
“Yes,” she said. “You come and help me.”<\/p>\n
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!”<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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