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Drawing showing a regulated child. Her brain is being run by her curly grey matter (Cory) and she is calm, can listen and learn. It shows a fast transformation to dysregulated. This person is under the control of her amygdala (Amy) which is the fear centre of the brain. She cannot listen and learn, and her cortex is offline. The transformation back to regulated can be slow and take hours.

What Is an Amygdala Hijack and How Can You Help?

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‘You’re HURTING ME!’ they cry. ‘Stop SHOUTING!!!!’ they yell.

What’s happening at these moments, when your child is beside themselves and they seem hypersensitive to every small thing you try to keep them safe and calm? When a whisper appears ear-splittingly loud and a featherlike touch is like being branded with a hot poker?

The Thinking Brain

When a child perceives a threat, their thinking brain, the curly grey matter or cortex (we’ll call him Cory) processes the information and decides how best to respond. Cory might override the emotional amygdala (Amy) and tell her to calm down, because it was ‘just’ a car door banging. And miraculously, Cory stays in charge and Amy has a little huff, but sashays out of the way.

But there are times when Amy decides that this is serious, so she punches Cory and seizes control. What happens next can seem wildly disproportionate, extreme, intense. Your child is in fight, flight, freeze or fawn mode, an automatic response to danger that’s run by the amygdala (Amy). For some children, Amy is more sensitive than others, constantly alert for danger and likely to respond with greater intensity than other (neuro-typical or non-traumatised) children.

When Cory is in charge, a person is regulated. When it’s Amy, then they’re dysregulated (also known as hyperarousal).

Regulation

Regulation is our default mode. It is when we can think, process, listen, learn, respond, react. We can draw upon knowledge and experience to size up situations and respond. As parents, we need to remain regulated to handle our child’s amygdala hijack. Things are likely to go downhill quickly if we panic or get overly stressed by it, because two dysregulated people adds up to utter carnage.

When we (or our child) are regulated, we’ll be relaxed, our movements will be fluid, our pupils will respond appropriately to light levels, our breathing will be calm, our limbs will flow, our skin will have good blood supply. We will adjust our volume, tone, pace to suit the conversation. We might be sad, excited, anxious, frustrated; and yet we remain regulated.

Dysregulation In An Instant

But something happens (we might trip and fall), or emotions build slowly until they hit overload and we push out of our window of tolerance and into dysregulation. Amy is the fear and panic centre of the brain and has a limited range of responses (fight/ flight etc). Our children act like rabbits in the headlights, goading, or running at full pelt. My daughter flees; my son freezes with a side of fighting.

When Amy is in charge, then our bodies will be tense, angular, our pupils might dilate so we can see better. Our breathing will likely be fast, short, panting; our heart will be racing in our chests. Our faces may pale as blood diverts to our muscles. We might get sweaty palms or goosebumps on our arms. We might shout, yell, push people away, run away.

Many children struggle to identify the early warning signals that are clues to an imminent amygdala hijack – my own children have sensory processing issues such that feeling hot or clammy or noticing a racing heart is beyond them. Which makes life tricky as we can’t take evasive action to disarm the hijacker (Amy).

An amygdala hijack is when Amy is in control of their brains and we have to deal with her, because Cory is offline.

How To Make Things Worse…

We can’t reason with Amy. She’s not listening. As parents, by trial and bruises, we discovered all the things NOT to do:.

  • Touching the person – a hug, squeeze, even a light touch, makes our daughter explode. She’s not all that keen when not aroused. Remember in fight or flight mode, all our senses are heightened. For children who are sensitive to touch, then any physical contact at this point is like punching them. I cannot tell you how many times our children yelled ‘you hurt me‘ when we tried to hold them during a hijack thinking we were doing the right thing to keep them safe.
  • Raised voices. I get it. The whole situation is super stressful. You might be freaking out (and even dysregulated). But, as above, children who are already sensitive to noise hear even a raised firm voice as unbearable. My children would yell ‘stop shouting at me‘ even when we didn’t think we were and sometimes burst into tears at the unbearable pain that a loud voice inflicted on their super sensitive hearing.
  • Being too close. My children’s bodies ripple with tension that I dearly want to soothe away. But they want to be left well alone. Stay safe and out of kicking or hitting distance if that is what your child needs.
  • Soothing, calming noises. Sounds like the right idea, but if I’ve learnt one thing, asking a dysregulated child to ‘calm down’ is like pouring petrol on a fire in the hope of putting it out. It’s only going to make things worse.

How To Make Things Better…

It’s detective time. What works for one child may not work for another, and what went brilliantly one day, might exacerbate things today. For my children, the generally successful (but not guaranteed) approach is:

  • Breathe. This is about keeping yourself calm. You might put your hand on your stomach and deliberately breathe deeply so that your child might notice your hand rising and falling. But often Amy doesn’t give two hoots about breathing, because she’s not all that keen on relinquishing control.
  • Stay close but do not touch. Depending on the situation, we might be sat outside their bedroom, across the room, or at the other end of a bench. We stay close (to keep them safe) but well out of arms (and kicks) reach, leaving clear air between our bodies. As they calm down, we might gently stroke a hand (but only by moving our hand slowly towards and backing off if they flinch away). You’ll get to know when they might be able to be hugged.
  • Stay silent. Nothing we say is going to make this situation better. Because talking is processed by Cory, and he’s not here. Amy speaks fear and panic only, so the less you say (preferably nothing at all) the better.
  • Hugging Toys. Whilst touching other humans can be triggering, some children can find hugging something cuddly tight to their body (a pillow, coat or toy) soothing. I’ve been known to stroke my daughter’s face with the ear of her favourite cuddly bunny and that’s met with more success than touching her directly.
  • Wait. Time is the most powerful tool you have. I’ve read that it takes six seconds for the adrenaline rush to calm down. That’s your golden window for quiet space. Whilst an amygdala hijack is often instantaneous, the reverse process can take minutes, hours, sometimes days (depending on the trigger, the child, their brain, neurodiversity and more).

Then What?

As the child starts to calm, then having specific extra-calming activities to hand can help to reset their bodies and help them recover from the stress hormones that have flooded their system.

  • chewing (gum or sweets)
  • sucking (particularly thick liquids like smoothies or milkshakes through thin straws)
  • eating (to reset their blood sugar levels which can be disturbed by the fight/ flight response)
  • listening to music, movement, and
  • distraction can all help.

My son (who freezes) would respond really well to Lego as a distraction. I’d rattle the box, chatting merrily to myself about whatever it was I was building. He couldn’t get himself out of a funk, but his natural curiosity and love of Lego would gradually overcome his mood and he would slowly come out from under his duvet, peek at what I was doing and eventually join in, building with me.

Safety Is Your Priority

As Sarah Fisher says in her book “Connective Parenting” the two most essential steps are keeping people safe, and staying regulated. Everything else can wait.

Sometimes you sit outside a room whilst your child throws stuff around (and you pray they don’t up-end the box containing a thousand pieces of Lego). Amy is unpredictable and wild. So you keep your distance and keep yourself safe. And you wait for them to calm. Because they will, eventually. Amy is no marathon runner. She’s a sprinter. Thank goodness.

Yes, I know how hard it is to handle these situations when Amy hijacks them in a busy public place (when a stranger touches her hair, darn them). But knowing what to do, and how best to react, gives everyone the best possible chance of calming down and recovering the situation. We try to make sure we (or the children) always carry fidgets, worry stones and chewing gum for emergencies.

What are your best strategies for helping a child who is dysregulated/ hyper-aroused or experiencing an amygdala hijack? Let me know in the comments

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Image entitled "Six SEND struggles in high school". 1. Communication. A Teacher is giving a long multi-stage instruction. Also saying "why can't you just...". 2. Relationships. Shows a masking child being ignored by other pupils. 3. Stress. Shows a teacher saying "test time", "move seats", "stand up and read to the class", "you're teacher is absent so today you've got me", "hurry up". 4. Concentration. Shows a pupil in front of a board covered in greek letters. 5. Safety. Shows a pupil being tripped up whiilist others pupils laugh and point. 6. Sensory - shows a pupil being poked, feeling overwhelmed by smells and sounds.

Six Reasons School Is Hard for SEND pupils

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School is hard. Our two children coped okay in Infants (bit fidgety), started to struggle in Juniors (bit distracted and can’t sit still) but by high school, things became far, far harder. To a point that school became a step too far for our daughter as she hit autistic burnout.

But why? Here are six reasons that SEND pupils find schools to be exhausting, overwhelming and an huge strain on their mental and physical well-being.

1. Communication

Teachers are busy and have a lot of information to convey. They might give a series of instructions in a single breath. But what if you can’t hold that much in your brain at once? Our daughter has a very low working memory, so can cope with one or two things at once (on a good day). Anything more and she simply won’t remember the rest. Too many and she won’t even remember the first thing you said as her brain is overloaded and freaking out. How many teachers have time to give out one instruction at a time and wait for the pupil to process and then complete it? Yet that’s what she would need.

And it’s not just complexity of teacher’s instructions that derails them; communication in the teenage years gets a whole lot more involved. They have to navigate nuance (subtlety), metaphors, ambiguity, idioms, sarcasm and jokes. Obviously this applies to chats with friends too, as teenage relationships become more complex and blunt honesty is less welcomed. Which brings us onto…

2. Relationships

The teenage years are about identity, belonging, fitting in. My daughter tried to be invisible, to avoid negative attention. But it doesn’t matter how much an SEND pupil masks or tries to be like everyone else, students know. They pick up on the differences. Neurodiverse young people say the wrong things, hold themselves differently, copy others as they try to understand the world, laugh at the wrong bits, say too much or too little, have too much or too little eye contact.

My daughter is attending a course for neuro-diverse teens and whilst they are all different (a few cope in school, some self-teach at home, some struggle to say anything at all), the one thing that is universal is that none of them have any close friends. And that sucks.

3. Stress

Many neurodiverse people find comfort in routine, whereas school is unpredictable. A teacher might be absent (and the temporary replacement rarely understands pupils’ needs), the seating plan might change, a test is set unexpectedly, children are asked to pick teams in PE (which is divisive and should NEVER happen), pupils are asked a question, put on the spot or asked to stand and read aloud. All of these things create huge anxiety and stress.

My daughter becomes mute when stressed (selective mutism), yet a senior teacher put her on the spot and then waited patiently for a response. Whilst she became less and less able to respond as her anxiety rose and rose and rose. (This was before her formal diagnosis but when her support plan noted potential neurodiversity.)

4. Concentration

Focusing for almost an hour at a time, in a stressful unpredictable environment is a huge task for neurodiverse children. They have an ability to focus that is almost unparalleled (hyperfocus), but only on the things that hook into their brain and capture their attention. So with topics that don’t grab them, they struggle to focus their energy and enthusiasm. They might lose their place (then have to ask another pupil what was said, incurring the negative attention of a teacher for talking), miss steps out, or just lose interest because they’ve no energy left.

Their desire to escape, to look outside, to cope with overwhelm by stimming or day-dreaming, often takes their brain in directions that aren’t conducive with study. But these are valid coping mechanisms and no amount of shouting or cheerleading is going to change things.

5. Safety

Safety is paramount for all of us. Our children need a solid foundation beneath them, to feel that the world is okay, that it is free from threats, that they are safe and can relax. Despite policies that promise safety, schools are rarely the safe haven that SEND pupils need. It doesn’t matter what your paperwork says, if a student is harassed, barged and picked on before they’ve even sat down for the first lesson.

My daughter doesn’t trust adults (due to trauma as a baby). She takes months to get to know a grown-up well enough to trust them. In a high school with five lessons a day, five days a week, on a two-week timetable, her interactions are too infrequent and too many for her to build that solid relationship.

Then there’s bullying. The name calling. The pupils who touch her or her hair deliberately to provoke an extreme reaction. Who say horrible things about her being adopted or her birth parents. How can a pupil feel safe if they experience things like that on a daily basis?

6. Sensory

Finally, there is the sensory experience of school. Imagine having the volume turned to overdrive on every one of your senses…

  • Smells – from science labs to the food hall, from the smell of deodorants in the toilets or after PE, or being maliciously sprayed with it. The smells can make our children feel physically sick.
  • Sounds – school is a busy place with thousands of pupils. There is a constant onslaught of noise from chatting, chairs scraping, desks moving, books banging, alarms going and more. Then there are teachers raising their voices to be heard above the melee.
  • Touch – for a child who hates to be touched, the jostling as pupils stream from one classroom to the next in a busy corridor, the queues for food at break and lunchtimes, the poking and prodding, the chair kicking, those who deliberately touch her hair for a reaction. Never mind the scratchy uniform and shoes…

Everything Is Wrong

When my daughter or son were struggling with school, when it all became too much, when they sobbed or shook in their beds unable to move or attend, I’d ask them gently what’s wrong? I wanted an easy answer. Something I could solve.

Invariably their answer was EVERYTHING, which I thought less than helpful.

It took me time to fully understand them, their bodies and brains, and get to grips with their individual needs. To unpick their experiences in school. To wake up to the truth in their answer.

For them, nearly everything is wrong about school.

And however much school make minor adjustments – like ear defenders or letting them leave class early to avoid some of the crush – most schools are inherently overwhelming, overstimulating, overtaxing. They’re an experience that is just far far too much for some of our children.

Our children were born a certain way and they can’t rearrange their bodies and brains to fit a system that causes damage (to their self-esteem) and threatens their well-being (through constant crippling anxiety). It’s time for things to change. For government and local authority to truly understand the special educational needs and disabilities and design (and crucially fund) a system that fully supports their needs.

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End of Term Problems

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‘Time to turn off the television/ tablet‘ you say in your best sing-song voice.

‘Yes Mummy/ Daddy‘ your child replies gleefully as they turn it off and skip to you for a hug.

For many of us the above is a fictional account of what happens, because…

Change is a shock.

There are little changes like shutting down a tablet and big ones like the end of a school year – which is a layer upon layer of tricky stuff to cope with.

Problem 1: They Are Bone Tired

  1. By the end of the school year, my kids are tired. Exhausted. Ready for a break.
  2. Because they are running on empty, they are more prone to coughs, colds, tonsillitis and more.
  3. Whilst they need a break, the holidays are a freestyle period of spontaneity. However much we discuss our plans, they struggle to grasp that amount of information in advance, so feel insecure about what is coming next.
  4. Long light days make sleeping harder (even with blackout blinds and curtains).

That in itself is quite a lot to cope with. But there’s more.

Problem 2: Transitionitis

Of course, the end of one school year is much more than just the end of term. Because next year, after the summer holiday:

  • Their teacher and teaching assistant will change
  • Their classroom and peg and drawer will change
  • Who they sit next to and the classroom dynamics will change
  • What and how they learn will change

EVERYTHING will change

Problem 3: Routine Is Thrown Out Of The Window

Dear Teachers

Please note – for every “exciting” thing you put into your end of term timetable, some pupils find them very, very, very stressful. Your exciting event is my children’s panic, stress, nightmares, inability to sleep, relax, enjoy or learn.

An Exhausted Mum

The end of term brings a veritable cornucopia of anxiety-inducing events. From sports’ day, to discos, non-uniform days, outdoor events, residentials or trips, plus award ceremonies, end-of-term assemblies and prize-givings. And don’t get me started on last year’s surprise talent competition…

If you’ve rocked a sobbing child who’s too stressed to sleep for days before each of these “fun” events, you too might roll your eyes when school announces yet another end-of-term surprise. Colour me unconvinced that these special events are great for all children.

Solutions: What Our Children Need

When the future seems wobbly, children need routine

What schools can do:

  • Stick to the routine as much as possible, for as long as you can
  • Provide lots of warning and a clear timetable for these non-routine events to parents in advance (no surprises, please!)
  • Pick one day of the week as your Event Day and then keep the rest of the timetable intact
  • Consider how your exciting events impact on those children who crave certainty and predictability in order to feel safe and stay calm (and essentially able to learn)
  • Schedule events throughout the year, rather than cramming them all at the end of term
  • Focus on laughter and fun during transition events to help kids relax
  • Create a comprehensive and gradual transition plan – starting the week after spring half-term and building gradually

When faced with change, with uncertainty ahead, with transition, many children need routine and predictability to help them feel calm, not spontaneity and excitement.

Ask yourself as a school what you can do to reduce not increase anxiety.

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Regulation and Dysregulation

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A few years ago I neither knew the word dysregulation nor did I use it frequently when answering my husband’s ‘how was today?’ question.

Yet as I began to learn about adoption, trauma and what drives behaviour, these words crept into my vocabularly, helping me to express my experiences as a mum.

But it turns out that I was not entirely correct in the words I was using to express the behaviours of my children. I believed that regulation and dysregulation were an either/or situation:

  • My child is/ I am regulated – calm, happy in control
  • My child is/ I am dysregulated – out of control, angry, fearful, responding with fight or flight, shouting

Yet as I read in Helen Oakwater’s book “Want to Adopt?”, I learnt that there is more to learn about trauma and emotions than a simple on/off, regulated/dysregulated emotional state.

What Is Regulation?

Regulation (when people are operating within their own unique ‘Window of Tolerance’) is a state where a person is sufficiently in control of their emotions that they can make conscious decisions.

Whilst frequently associated with calmness, we can be excited and regulated, shouting and regulated, running and regulated, sad and regulated.

Dysregulation is a state of emotional agitation, which may be uncomfortable, but the person is still in control, as in they act and respond from their thinking brain.

Hyperarousal

Hyperarousal is a state beyond dysregulation, when the thinking brain is shut down and people respond with from their autonomic nervous system (or ANS) with typically a fight or flight reaction.

There is a similar hypoarousal state, where a child is physical numb and shut down, which some parents might experience (but not me).

This helpful diagram lays out the relationships between regulation, dysregulation and hyper/hypo arousal that you might like to print out for reference.

Hyperarousal (that I have erroneously called dysregulation in this blog) is where our automatic reactions of flight, fight, freeze and flop come into play. In this state, we are unable to think and able only to react in a very basic survival-based way.

When children are in hyperarousal, we use Bruce Perry’s approach, focussing first on regulation. Because until the children (or adult) is calm and regulated, their thinking brain is turned off. So there is zero point to reasoning with them, as they are simply unable to listen or process what you are saying. It’s like trying to light a fire by putting a match to a log, the sequence is all wrong. (See Regulate/ Relate and Reason.)

Whilst I have been using dysregulated in my blog and tweets, what my children were experiencing was actually hyperarousal. Thank you Helen for adding much needed depth and nuance to my understanding.

I hope this blog and description will help you understand some of what goes on in the emotional state of yourself (when you leave your window of tolerance) and the stages to look out for.

You might also find this article on windows of tolerance helpful: https://www.attachment-and-trauma-treatment-centre-for-healing.com/blogs/understanding-and-working-with-the-window-of-tolerance

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The Trauma Mask

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“She seems happy” says Hazel* (from school), as she sits on a table with our social worker Mo*.  We three are discussing how best school can support Bubbles to feel safe and secure.

I sigh deeply and remain silent, shaking my head a little.

Bubbles, like many traumatised children, lives her life behind a mask. A mask of control, of pretence, of keeping her feelings and emotions hidden. The mask only slips when she feels safe – when she feels secure enough to express the inner conflict of her world.

“Is Bubbles happy at school?” Hazel asks, her tone a mix of bewilderment and concern.

What should I say? There isn’t an easy answer.

A High Functioning Traumatised Child

Bubbles achieves in school. She is meeting expectations in all areas, exceeding them in reading. She tries really hard to do what she is told and what is expected of her. She tries (so hard) to please and be recognised and rewarded in school.

To all intents and purposes she might seem like a model pupil. She is what I call a highly functioning traumatised child. Yet a deep dark secret lies beneath the surface. 

But in holding in together, the truth leaks out as clues

  • The way she can tip into anger or frustration with a single misplaced word
  • Her reaction to friendship issues, to rejection taking it beyond personal into a slight on her very soul
  • How any stress or frustration shown by an adult will stress her out ten fold (by taking perceived safety from her)
  • Her chewing (raw, powerful grinding)

At a recent assembly I watched her chewing (as my heart went out to my amazing girl). It wasn’t just a curl of hair that strayed near her mouth; Bubbles was stuffing great handfuls of hair into her mouth and gnawing it with gusto. When it wasn’t her hair, it was the shawl I had crocheted for her. Yet minutes later, when I gently asked her if she was anxious, she denied it and seemed surprised that the shawl was wet.

The touching sight of her anxiety led me to action: whilst school had been hesitant when I had previous suggested one, that day I bought her a chewigem pendant to bite in school and at home (Bubbles was delighted). Her chewing isn’t the issue; anxiety is the issue. Bubbles isn’t present during her anxiety.  She is stuck in flight or fight mode (when her amygdala – what we call Amy – is in charge). Sometimes she simply doesn’t even remember being anxious or angry, as if her brain has blanked it out.

And because she doesn’t know she is anxious, she won’t tell you she is either.

Her Mask is Safety

Bubbles problem is simple: she doesn’t feel safe. Her early years were sufficiently chaotic and disorganised that she learnt that the only way to be safe was to be in control.

  • To take charge of every situation
  • To do what she is told to avoid anger or violence or harsh words
  • To deny her own emotions for they were too painful

She Yearns For Love

To her teachers and the staff, she seems a happy, cheerful model pupil. Like a swan. All elegant gliding on the surface, but beneath the water, her insides are churning like crazy.

Her need for love, for praise, for acknowledgement, for recognition competes with her anxiety. Bubbles sits and practices her times tables, her handwriting, her reading because she wants someone to notice her and smile.

A little eye contact and a smile mean the world to her.

Yet shame is just beneath the surface. A harsh word and her world crumbles. She tries so hard, exhausting herself every day holding everything tight, holding her world together, taking control of every tiny aspect of her life, losing the carefree years of her childhood.

The Mask Falls Away

At home Bubbles feels safe.

She can express her raw, intense emotions without being shouted at, without incurring the attention of the class, without being shamed. The mask falls away and I see just how much keeping it all together during the day costs my little girl.

I am humbled that she trusts me enough to express her rage, her anger, her intensity – and writing this the guilt rises up at the times when I didn’t react with empathy. On a day when multiple things have gone wrong, her rage can last two hours.

Homework is hard. Not because she is lazy or doesn’t care. Sometimes she cares too much.

  • Sometimes (after a good day) she has energy and enthusiasm to spare and aces her homework, which builds her fragile self-esteem
  • After a hard day, when her anxiety left her running on vapours, then it triggers rage because it feels too hard (and rocks her self esteem)
  • If her anxiety is still sky high, then it triggers shame because she can’t remember her spellings or times tables.

Her battle is real, every school day. Yet somehow through all of this, she still manages to absorb information, to learn, to have moments of fun and friendship.

But when you ask me if Bubbles enjoys school, I don’t really know what to tell you.

* not their real names.

This blog is an excerpt from Emma’s forthcoming sequel to her book “And Then There Were Four” that charts the struggle to learn to parent her adoptive children therapeutically, to get support from school and the adoption agency and to educate herself and others in the needs of her adopted children. It will be published in 2025 and entitled “And Trauma Made Five.”Facebooktwitter

The Crochet Conundrum: Sanity versus Presence

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If you follow me on social media, you will have seen a lot of photos of crochet lately. Have I lost the plot? Am I creating crochet orphans of my children, as my attention is drawn to the magical combination of hook and wool?

What’s with all the crochet?

Crochet Keeps Me Sane

I revived my crochet in the hope of skipping over the snacking-hour that has me dipping into highly calorific nonsense the minute Andy takes the kids to bed. And it is hard to crochet and each cheezy dibbles at the same time (unless you are using orange wool).

But in it, I found much more than just a distraction from biscuits.

  • It is utterly absorbing – my mind gets a rest from all the thoughts and problems such as my mum’s health problems
  • It is relaxing – it is a flow experience that takes over for minutes or hours at a time
  • I create something unique – an original combination of wool, hook and pattern that is practical (in winter at least)
  • It is fast – as someone who is undeniably impatient, I love making something in just a few hours (unlike books which takes years to mature)
  • I am learning new skills. Today I learnt how to start a double-crochet chain and it felt amazing to nail it (even if it’s not going to make my CV)
  • It gives me something productive to do in those few moments where I would be twiddling my thumbs or checking my phone for the umpteenth time

The Hours We Wait

As a parent, the hours of waiting (when I’m purely there in my capacity as a Bouncer) seriously add up

  • At the school gate – as they race off and play with their friends until the door opens
  • At the swimming pool – we are there way too early (soo excited to go swimming, even ten minutes of shivering as we wait cannot dull her giddiness), and it takes ages to pull skin-tight leggings over damp post-swim legs
  • At mealtimes – waiting for them to finally finish the plate or declare that they can’t eat another bite (unless there is pudding)
  • At the playgym or park – when I am there to ward off Stranger Danger, to rescue them (less often nowadays) or ferry them to the toilet

Parenting can often feel like a hundred waits a day – all strung together. Nibbles and Bubbles are at an age now when they don’t want me to play tag with them in the school playground (Mum! No! How embarrassing!), but I have to be there.

Now I get to add a few more rows to a hat or scarf, whilst looking up like a less-nervous meerkat occasionally to revel in their play, in their games, in their swinging or balancing as the sun catches my face.

Sanity Versus Presence

Recently I commented to Sarah Fisher (author of Connective Parenting) that I was concerned that my Parental Presence was suffering as a result of my current crochet fad. Parental Presence is the true gift of your unwavering, undivided, unhurried attention that lets them know that you care, that they matter etc.

Her reply (which inspired this blog) was “Ah the balance of sanity vs presence”

How can I be sure that my crochet (or tweeting, or next hobby) is positive for the whole family, rather than just positive for me?

  • Do I still pay attention to my children? Am I emotionally available to them when they need to be heard, listened to, to talk, to share, to ask for help (or do I tell them to go away as I. Am. Busy?)
  • Do I ensure that I give my children my undivided (hooks down, wool out of sight) attention at both the start and the finish of each day?
  • Do I wait for my children to decide that they do not want my attention/ energy before I pick up my hooks/ phone etc?
  • Do I spend more time (when the kids are around) with them or with my hooks?

I haven’t always got it right (I told Andy that I was busy just last night, counting stitches as it happened). And that last one had me responding with an Oh (followed by ouch) which tells me that recently the balance has been in favour of crochet rather than them.

Yet the truth is, that whether I am ready for them to grow up or not, Nibbles and Bubbles need (and want) me less and less these days.

They are more independent, more self assured, keener to do things on their own. Bubbles loves to spend time at her (new) desk in her bedroom, reading, writing and more. Nibbles loves to play, but often on his own rather than with me. And in that gap, in that new space in our family, I have rediscovered a love of crochet. I just have to make sure that it doesn’t nudge the other fledglings out of the nest, like an oversized cuckoo.

So I am setting out my stall in front of you, my audience, as you are my witness:

I choose both – my kids and crochet, parental presence and sanity.

 

 

 

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Ice Ice Baby Please Please Sleep

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The lounge door opens. We pause the TV (just in case). It’s TOO hot Mummy. I sigh. I am rapidly running out of ideas. Bubbles really needs her sleep and last night, the hottest night of the year so far, was a particularly protracted bedtime – instead of lightly snoring at 8pm, she came down to complain umpty-seven times and was still awake nearly an hour later.

Some children might cope quite well with less sleep, but tiredness is a big trigger for emotional dysregulation in our house, so I do everything I can to help them sleep. Here’s some of the things I have and will be trying.

Ice in the Room

Keeping the room as cold as possible helps enormously:

  • Close the curtains during the day to stop sunshine warming the room through the windows
  • Once the sun is no longer shining directly in, open the curtains and the windows to the max
  • Ensure that the air has room to flow – that means leaving their door open (and tiptoeing around at night), but an open window with a closed door doesn’t work
  • Use a fan to circulate air and cool the skin (cue complaint about the noise!). As an added bonus Fi (@wilmawasmycat on twitter) suggested putting bottles of frozen water in front of a fan to provide air conditioning. One to try tonight.

Daytime Ice-child

For daytime cooling off:

  • Hoses, water pistols and even a sprinkler. We don’t have a sprinkler, but Michelle (@Reader5Michelle on twitter) said that it was the best £20 [she] had ever spent for summer fun. So I might have to invest (if I can silence my water saving eco warrier) because it is hilarous and cools us down. I might use the hose in the meantime…
  • Paddling pool – this is the time of year when even straight-from-the-tap paddling pool water is acceptable to my kids. So let them soak, splash and more to keep cool during the daytime.

Nighttime Ice-child

We have a standard bedtime routine with TV and stories that keeps the children’s emotions and energy at an even keel and this is even more important on hot days (for ours, running around outside in the heat and then coming in for bed simply wouldn’t work).

You can also use these tricks to cool them down to help sleep come more easily/ quickly:

  • A cold bath or shower – preferably as close to bedtime as possible, so either move their existing bath or shower nearer to lights-out or add an extra dip just beforehand
  • A cold flannel or sponge – on the forehead, the back of the neck, over the skin for a light wash. Where possible, leave the moisture on their skin as its evaporation will cool the skin. Removing the clammy sensation and making them feel fresh can make a huge difference and give them a window of coolness in which to fall asleep. If they don’t like the feel of a flannel, ice-cold water in a spray that leaves a fine mist might suit them better
  • Ice on the skin – whilst it makes Bubbles giggle and wriggle, often an ice cube rubbed down her spine, over her forehead and on the back of her neck is even better than a flannel
  • An ice-water bottle. Hot water bottles are so, like, winter, don’t you know. But the same bottle filled with cold water (and ice if you have any leftover from your G&T) is something tactile they can keep next to them as they try to sleep. It lasts longer too, so they don’t pop down to tell you how hot they are every ten seconds
  • A cold drink – some sips of cold tap water can cool your child a little
  • A small pieces of ice to suck on – my kids both like to suck or chew on ice, so it’s both a treat and can help them feel they are doing something to fight the heat. It might be a sense of control over the heat that matters most

Ice Their Mind

Much of the problem with a hot night is not the heat. It’s our thoughts and how frustrated we get about them.

Bubbles: It’s too hot

She is not really telling me it’s hot, because I know it is hot, and she’s already told me five times in the last twelve minutes.

As tempting as it is to reply: Just Go. To. Sleep that is about as useful as telling her to calm down. I need to read behind the lines, to the words she isn’t saying, to what she really wants. The least I need to do is respond with empathy:

Me: It must be very frustrating feeling so hot when you want to sleep.

It might be that she wants a specific technique – so I might ask How can I help? And she might admit she wants a cold water bottle.

But these are some useful techniques that apply just as much (if not more) on hot days to help my daughter (particularly) calm down:

  • Calming her thoughts. Our brains cannot hold two conflicting thoughts at once. So if we can replace the I hate the hot weather, it’s too hot thought with something more helpful that will calm us, that will shove the other one out. As we walked to school today, we talked about how it is often our thoughts about a situation, not the situation itself that keeps us awake. Perhaps thoughts like I love the sunshine. This is just warm. I can fall asleep quickly and easily will work? We will be testing these tonight.
  • Calming her breath.  Sitting alongside her for a few minutes and just breathing slowing together in silence can help her to relax a bit.

Today has been another scorcher of a day, and tonight is forecast to be hot. I have bought another cold-water bottle so the kids won’t fight over them, I have some plastic bottles 3/4 full of water in the freezer for my homemade air conditioning and we will be talking through some more positive thoughts before bed.

Wish us luck…

What techniques have you found to be useful in helping your children (and adults) to get to sleep faster on a hot muggy days?

 

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The Censorship of Don’t

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We’re walking back from school and I ask Bubbles about a forthcoming performance:

  • “And how are you feeling about it, sweetie?” I ask (my tone packed with sing-song curiosity)
  • “Scared” she replies meekly

And I nearly fall into a trap packed with good intentions. The trap of “Don’t”

Don’t

Parenting can feel like a string of Don’ts: Don’t touch the oven, Don’t throw your food, Don’t strangle your sister, Don’t put cornflakes down your pants for heaven’s sake, Don’t, Don’t, Don’t….

Some Don’ts are for safety, some for sanity, but why do I try and steer their emotions as well? I don’t mean to, I do it almost unconsciously:

  1. “What if it goes wrong?” – “It won’t go wrong, you’ve done all that hard work” [Don’t think that]
  2. “But my brother is super annoying” – “No, he’s not, you love him really” [Don’t say that]
  3. “I am rubbish at this” – “That’s not true, look at these correct answers” [Don’t believe that]

Yet in all these well-meant, half-conscious responses, I am stomping all over their feelings, denying their experiences, and not listening deeply enough to be influenced by what they are saying.They are pointing to some poo on the floor and I am pointing vigorously in the other direction instead, saying “Don’t Show Me That“

Sometimes they get so frustrated at me that they tell me in no uncertain words that I am NOT. LISTENING. TO. THEM.

When Bubbles tells me “I am scared“, it tingles on the tip of my tongue: “Don’t be scared.”  But she already is.

Feelings Are Not Right or Wrong

Feelings are neither right nor wrong, they just are.

  • Would we say “don’t be sad” to someone who had just experienced a bereavement? No!
  • Would tell someone “don’t be happy” if they had just fallen in love? As if!

Whether Bubbles is scared, catatonic, doesn’t want to go, wants to go, is delirious, feels like puking, is ambivalent about it, whatever she is feeling is valid. It’s an expression of everything she has experienced in her life. And if I want her to know that she is loved, she is accepted, that she will always be loved whatever, then I need to let her know that whatever she is feeling is A. okay with me.

Be Curious

Instead, I lean in and get curious.

  • “Why are you scared, sweetie?” (more sing-song, no judgement)
  • “Because I am in a group with a boy who always stands in the wrong place”
  • “Oh… What could you do about that then?”

She has tangible and specific reasons that are stoking her fear that we now discuss. We talk about what she might be able to do about it, and I steer clear of giving her ready-made solutions and focus on asking her questions, to help her gain confidence in solving these things for herself.

By being curious, by being open, by letting her take the lead, this conversation gains a depth and a richness that would never have happened if I had fallen down the “Don’t Feel That” trap. We have a conversation that starts with fear, and ends with true connection, several fabulous ideas to solve it that she came up with all by herself, a sense of relief on both our parts, a big grin on her face and a lovely warm hug.

That is what you can create, if you don’t fall into the Censorship of Don’t.

(irony knows no bounds in this post).

 

 

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Get Off The Parenting Naughty Step!

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It’s the end of a long day, when finally the battles over teeth cleaning (its just two minutes sweetie), hair brushing (I know its tangly, that’s why we need to brush it), getting into bed (you’re thirsty are you? again?), and back into bed (just take off your top if you are hot), and settling down to sleep (yes, I have left the light on in the bathroom, yes your teddies are all lined up in order, yes I have put the cat out) are over and you can settle down, put your feet up, drink you first hot cup of tea (what is it now honey?) that doesn’t go cold, and finish your “To Do” list by reflecting on the day.

Despite all the successes, the getting them dressed and to school/ nursery on time, the not-losing-it in Asda, the mostly empty plates, the mostly happy times, our mind is drawn, like a fly to one of those buzzing blue lights, to an incident. Something that didn’t go exactly to plan and it comes to blight our peace and remind us that we got it wrong.

And we put ourselves firmly on the Parenting Naughty Step.

STOP IT

It is all too easy to find ourselves lacking as parents. Because I guess that you, like me, like every other parent, is not the therapeutic parenting (TP) twin to Dan Hughes and Bruce Perry.

You might have read their books, absorbed the theory and then been a little disappointed that every so often you still f*ck it up. You lose the plot, your buttons get pressed, you are too tired and you focus on correction not connection, or get agitated not animated, or use the F word with them (and it wasn’t “Freddie”).

Welcome to my morning (without the F word). I slept okay and yet something triggered a grump. My kids, having seen the PACE poster drawn large on our wall, and overheard Andy and I encouraging each other, became a new, PACE-informed conscience in my life today

“Remember Mummy” Nibbles said in a patronising tone that is disturbingly similar to my own “Play-fulness”

#Busted

So after drop off, I walked and put myself on a virtual naughty step.

But it’s not just me who does this. Yesterday one of my twitter friends admitted that she was spending “precious me time in a cafe thinking about all the bad parenting choices I’ve made in the last 24hrs.” We tweeted and I think I cheered her up.

You are not alone in the self recrimination. But it’s not useful if it only makes us feel bad.  So let’s get off that darn step and change the script.

PLAYFULNESS

This is my favourite approach.

You get to play the “How could this be even WORSE?” game.  

Don’t let a tiny slip grab too much limelight. Make it seem like a bit-part, a walk-on extra in a more extravagant melodrama (think screaming match outside the Queen Vic). How? Create in your mind, a much more cringe-worthy situation. Play with the ideas and images, until they become ridiculous, silly, exaggerated, a game of bad parenting one-up-parentship

“You shouted at him? That’s nothing, I shouted so loudly that I knocked a picture off the wall next door, and my neighbour was on the radio for a phone-in about noisy neighbours, and the recording – you can hear me screaming like a banshee – is all over social media and I am so embarrassed and that’s just the start, 5 milliseconds later my mother-in-law rang me up to tell me what a terrible mother I am, then unfriended me on Facebook and I received a telegram uninviting me to the Royal Wedding, and and and we have run out of milk so I can’t even drown my sorrows in a cuppa. And the washing machine is on the blink. And the batteries have run out in the TV remote/ my vibrator.”

Think of the Four Yorkshiremen Sketch.

Or cheer yourself up watching some of the much more viral parenting fails on YouTube – search terms like “why you shouldn’t leave your kids with Sudocream” or “kids and sharpies” and smile that the indelible tattoos, whilst wiping your forehead and thinking “there by the grace of God..”

Now you are feeling a bit lighter about it, try a little..

ACCEPTANCE

Forgive yourself.

You are human after all (soundtrack: Only Human by Rag’n’Bone Man).  We all mess up sometimes. Unless you are Donald Trump, when you not only mess up every day, but tweet loudly to millions of people about it too (more playfulness, I hope you noticed).

It is totally normal to lose your cool, to sometimes tell your children what to do instead of asking them, or solve their problem instead of helping them work it out for themselves, to shout at them to “calm down” even though that phrase has never worked, not even once.

It is okay to be tired, to have run out of TP juice, to feel wrung out and run down, or to be firing on all cylinders and still fall into patterns of parenting that we experienced for years from our own parents, who were still doing the best they could given the circumstances.

You are not WonderMum or WonderDad. You are YOU.  Perfect in your imperfection. Fallible, human and you are doing AMAZING.

Get real. Yes you messed up, but let’s also accept how fab you are. List at least 3 ways in which you did a good or great or genius parenting job today. Because the chances are, over the day you were a good or great parent 95% of the time, and yet what are you focusing on? The 5%.  Yet if your child scored 95% on a test, I bet you would be over the moon.

Not enough? Move onto stage 3:

CURIOSITY

So the sh*t hit the fan today. And you fell off your parenting throne.

WHY?

Let’s get curious, put on our Holmesian deerstalkers and explore what exactly happened:

  • What was happening just before you lost it? Were you tired/ frustrated/ trying to do too many things at once? Be honest.
  • What triggered the incident? What specific word, action, inaction? Be precise.
  • Why did that push your buttons? What belief or identity did that situation challenge in your mind? What rules have you given yourself or your children that were broken? What inflexibility is tripping you up?
  • What did you want to happen instead? What would need to have been different for that to happen today instead of what did? Re-run the scene as-if you had been brilliant and see how differently you feel and how you might increase the chances of that outcome next time.

Look for how this moment in time is a gift. An opportunity to rewire something in your brain, to address something in your past. What can you learn about how you do things, or what you think about being a parent that you might want to change?

You may want to do this with your bestie or partner, so that they ask you questions to explore what happened and why it mattered and why you are beating yourself up.  In every situation we can learn something about ourselves (even if we chose not to).

EMPATHY

The final technique is to talk to yourself with empathy. Be your own bestie. Give yourself a break and be kind to yourself. Gentle. Forgiving.

“I can understand how upset you are, you want to be the best parent in every situation and you feel like you failed today / let your child down/ weren’t the parent you wanted to be.”

  • Instead of trying to distract yourself from how you are feeling (with wine, chocolates, TV, exercise), lean in. Go deep. Find what lies beneath in YOU.
  • Breathe. Long and slow. And again. Long and slow.
  • Close your eyes. Relax. Let go.
  • Feel with every fibre of your being.  Focus on the feeling, because you might find that underneath your initial feeling is something enlightening.

I was upset a few months ago and @mumdrah gave me permission to be sad, to feel it all, to be with that feeling instead of running away from it.  And under my sadness at an escalation, I realised I was truly scared about Bubbles’ future. My heart was breaking, worrying that if we didn’t manage to solve it, or improve things, that there would be bleakness ahead. 

That changed things for me.  It made me step up in a new way. Those tears were a gift.

There Is No Magic Bullet

When we are tired, exhausted, when something has broken, when we run short of energy, funds, fun; it is all too easy to blame ourselves for situations that escalate, that don’t go to plan.

But perhaps we should see those situations as GREAT. Because in each of those failures is the seed for our success.  As Edison might once said (it’s hard to be sure, since I wasn’t there)

You didn’t fail. You just found a way to not-parent.

  1. Be playful.
  2. Be accepting
  3. Be curious
  4. Be empathic

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Poster With P.A.C.E. principles in visual format

P.A.C.E. Yourself

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P.A.C.E is an acronym that represents an approach to therapeutic parenting, as devised by Dan Hughes and it came to my attention as I searched for a way to help Bubbles.  I first dabbled in empathy (see my post Putting Out Fire With Fire).

That led me to read Dan’s book “Attachment Focused Parenting” which opened my eyes to a whole new approach and style of therapeutic parenting.

Bringing Andy Along

The poster started as a way to summarise the ideas from the book and various websites that I had visited. Then it grew from a rough sketch into something more.

And in its creation, I cemented what I knew (which wasn’t much) and added to it, because there is nothing like teaching (in poster form) to test your understanding of an acronym. As I explored P.A.C.E, and as our family struggled with the traditional approach to parenting, the ideas burrowed beneath my skin.

P.A.C.E. expresses four ideas (underscored with LOVE) that Dan (God in the eyes of many struggling adopters) Hughes has discovered over decades of working with families:

  1. Playfulness – being spontaneous, in the moment, using a sing-song storyvoice, learning to live and play in their worlds to defuse tension
  2. Acceptance – telling my children through words and importantly tone that I love and accept them, if not their behaviour, however angry or frustrated or annoyed or hyper they get.
  3. Curiosity – avoiding judgement and being open to discovering what they are feeling and why they feel that way, and being prepared to be influenced by what we hear. We step into their world for a moment, and dive deep to discover their truth.
  4. Empathy – by matching their intensity, tone and pace, by opening our hearts to reflect their feelings, we assure them that we are listening and that we are doing our best to understand. We look to understand them.

Work in Progress

It is a few years since we first encountered P.A.C.E and whilst we try our best, there are times when my tone is less than playful, when I am too exhausted to step into their world, when I am all out of empathy.

But having a reminder (the P.A.C.E. poster) on the kitchen  wall, helps to remind us of how we can parent on a good day.

Admitttedly, the other day, my daughter caught my frustrated tone and came out with this verbal reminder:

‘PLAYFUL, Mummy. Remember the P in P.A.C.E…’

The poster can be downloaded to print in A4 for personal use – for a small donation. Larger sizes for schools and for distribution can be purchased to embed therapeutic approaches – just get in touchFacebooktwitter