Tag Archives: therapeutic parenting

High-Energy Breathing Games for Regulation

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I’ve read that you can calm an agitated nervous system with an out-breath that’s twice as long as your in-breath.

That sounds simple enough. But is it?

A slower breath can help our children (and adults when our buttons gets pressed) to regulate, or stay in control.

(Read my blog on Regulation for more information about emotional states.)

Much of the time, I keep at least one eye/ ear on my kids, watching and listening for clues as to their emotional state. Sometimes they tip from regulated to hyperarousal in an instant, but other times it builds more gradually (via dysregulation – read my blog on Regulation for more information about emotional states.)

When it builds slowly, I have an opportunity to help them practice de-escalating their emotional state, to learn how to bring themselves down into their window of tolerance and avoid hyperarousal.

Since breathing is so simple and important, surely that is a winning approach?

And Breathe…

Well yes and no. I have tried (and failed) many times to use low-energy breathing exercises (e.g. suggesting they breath deeply to a rhythm I am clapping) to regulate their state.

The issues is the disconnect between their energy levels and what I am suggesting they do. When a child is on the giddy-excitable energy level, asking them to butterfly breaths doesn’t actually work.

  • They don’t want to calm down – they are enjoying being giddy
  • The step from giddy to calm is too steep to take in a single leap
  • Worse still, it can aggravate a situation through a lack of empathy (“you are spoiling our fun!”)

So instead, I use high-energy breathing games. Games that include the giddy-factor as it were. Here’s a list that the good people of twitter and I have created to give you lots of different ideas and stave off the “not again!” and “boring” responses.

Go Anywhere Games

These are games that can be done anywhere (although excessively loud roaring in confined spaces like cars and public toilets is not recommended):

  • The SHHH!! Game – see who can do the longest shhhhhhhhh without taking a breath (create a story about A Sleeping Lion or Creeping past a napping Grandma to get biscuits, or being a Ninja Stealing the Crown Jewels to make it fun)
  • The Opera Game – tell the story of a note that can break a glass and then ask everyone to practice with a long note at any pitch or volume
  • The Zoo Story – ask the kids to play the part of animals in a short story about the jungle. The animals need long and loud noises (roaring lions, trumpeting elephants, hissing snakes) with/without actions to match their energy levels and age
  • The Hot Chocolate Game – ask the children to describe their favourite hot drink (or soup), then create an imaginary tea party. Breathe in the smell (in long slow inhales)? Blow on the soup or chocolate to cool it (long slow breaths as it is very very hot). Take a long slow sip that makes the best / most disgusting sucking noise
  • The Lion Taming Game – the child plays the roaring lion; you time how long they roar (again a non-stop roar works best) and give them an inventive Lion Name based on how long they roar (Everlasting Roar of Africa, Supersonically Loudest King of the Jungle etc)
  • Dragon’s Breath – each person does the best fire-breathing dragon impression and you see how big a cloud of smoke they can create (best outside in cold winter months)
  • Blow Me Over – you can use the 3 Little Pigs as inspiration, or just ask them to blow your fringe out of your eyes/ blow so hard you have to close your eyes/ blow you over (lots of pretending being blown over and laughing to maximise playfulness)

You can also use any version of humming, singing, roaring, whistling and shouting to encourage children to create long out-breaths and hence calm their nervous system.

Games With Straws

Straws (reusable are most eco-friendly) are excellent blowing and sucking props – you can even buy foldable metal straws that fit in your pocket.

  • Blowing bubbles in a small amount of milk – getting the bubbles to the top of the glass (tall, wide glasses make this game last longer)
  • Blowing bubbles in a washing up bowl with washing-up liquid in it (only if the child is unlikely to suck it up)
  • Sucking thick milkshake through a straw or using “flavour straws” with milk
  • Blowing paint pictures (see photo above) – mix paint with water (thick card words best) and blow it to make fireworks, or splodges or alien pictures (add googly eyes for spectacular aliens, glitter for fireworks)
  • Assault Courses – using a mix of blowing and sucking to move lightweight items (see list below) around a mix of tunnels and walls. Sucking can be tricky with youngster (<5 YO) so test them out first to avoid making it too hard. Can be as simple as moving ten Maltesters from one plate to another by sucking them onto the straw and lifting them over with the power of suction alone
  • Blowing lightweight items around a track – e.g. a mini-golf course made of Lego or wooden bricks, or through a wooden tube (toilet roll), or along the floor/ to one end of the table in a cotton-wool footie game

Games With Lightweight or Ball-Type Items

Cotton wool balls are lightweight and very easy to move by blowing (hence lots of pride-inducing success) that can form the basis of lots of games. You can also use feathers, Maltesers, round grapes, and Poppets (or other similar round edible items) for these games.

  • Table football using a piece of cotton, wool or masking tape to divide the table (you can only blow from your end of the table). Use one or more cotton wool balls (lots = highest energy, aim is to blow them all off)
  • Blow a cotton wool ball between you and child whilst lying on the floor (best on wooden floors without too much dust especially if one of you is asthmatic). This is a Theraplay Game that my kids love
  • Light as a Feather Game – keeping feathers in the air by blowing underneath them and seeing how long you can keep them up. Try with leaves or helicopter seeds outside
  • Mazes – building mazes from bricks, Lego, whatever you can find and then blowing cotton wool balls, feathers or similar around the maze (with or without a straw)

Other Blowing/ Sucking Games

  • Musical instruments – harmonicas, kazoos, whistles, recorders etc work for long out-breaths
  • Inflating and releasing balloons is a huge favourite with my kids – chasing them around and then blowing them up gradually calms their arousal state
  • Blowing bubbles (preferably outdoors) and then chasing/ popping them helps when they are the ones blowing them
  • Bubble Gum – both the chewing action and the attempts to blow bubbles calms them down
  • Party Blowers – the ones that make a funny noise and unravel are great for long slow out-breaths
  • Lying down and placing a favourite teddy on your tummy. Then taking really big deep breaths to knock the teddy or dinosaur or Lego mini-figure off your tummy.

The next time you notice your child heading out of the regulation zone and towards hyperarousal, then why not try one of these high-energy breathing games?

Instead of clashing with their energy levels, you can exploit their enthusiasm and channel it into a game that will gradually lower their arousal and keep them in control.

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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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TP pie chart for a day

You Are More Therapeutic Than You Think

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You think you’re getting it all wrong. You feel like a failure. You want to be a fabulous therapeutic parent (TP) but you messed up. (Again.) You ask yourself When Will I Get This Right?

You rate yourself as a rubbish parent. 1 star. On a good day. (Blah blah woe is me blah)

But you’re already getting it right, far more than you give yourself credit for.

Look At Me! Look At Me!

Over the ten days of half-term, we experienced some testing days. Perhaps 3 of them. Or in other words, 70% of the time things went okay or better. Oh, I thought. It felt harder than that.

There’s more. The tricky days weren’t entirely awful. There were whole hours of peace, calm, playing, reading, eating, walking within those days that were okay. Even the hard days were good about 70% of the time.

So it would be more accurate to say that half term was ~5% awful, 95% not-bad, good or surprisingly good, occasionally jaw droppingly cute. Yet it didn’t feel like that.

Why not?

Apparently we are hardwired to remember bad times up to three times more than good times. Helpful? Nope. Those not-so-good memories bounce around our minds, jumping up and screaming Look At Me! whilst the lovely ones melt into the past like steam off that cup of tea you made- gah, cold again?

Savouring My TP Genius Moments

I am a TP genius for at least 12 hours a day. (Go Me). Yes, my kids are asleep for those hours, but it doesn’t detract from the fact that I am brilliant then. And there’s more: when my kids are at school (6 h/day) I’m also a TP Goddess.

It’s time that I recognised that for the vast majority of my day, I am kind, patient, wise, generous, quirky, fun and more. Sometimes I am these things when the kids are around.

Pie to Decimal Places (There’s Always Room For Pie)

Being realistic (see pie chart above), I average:

  1. Genius 5% of the time. This is the parenting equivalent of a getting an unexpected pay rise at work, another week of annual leave whilst going to a 4-day week. Rare as something affordable in Smiggle, but wonderful when it happens.
  2. Good/ Great 20% of the time. I am calm, patient, playful, curious etc. Note: this is not assessed by how my children behave but how I behave towards them*
  3. Okay 50% of the time. Not perfect. Mostly calm, maybe a bit flustered. But normal, everyday parenting level of competence. I didn’t nail it, but I didn’t break it either.
  4. UnTP/ Umm 25% of the time. When I will tut and say That could’ve gone better. Let’s look on the bright side – I created a learning experience, a chance to flick to the relevant page in Sarah Naish’s A to Z of TP and get value for money out of my TP Encyclopedia.

*Too many times I’ve judged myself badly because my child was dysregulated or defiant. I cannot control them (believe me, I tried); I can only take credit for how I behave (which is a double edged sword the times they are adorable and cute).

Instead of judging myself against an expert (Dan Hughes) with over 40 years experience, based on some ridiculous idolised version of a Therapeutic Parent, my aim is to be the best version of TP Emma I can be, knowing that I am flawed in lots of quirky and interesting ways that make for better blogs and books.

Give Yourself Credit

Here’s what you can do if you find yourself wallowing in self doubt:

  • Stop aiming for being a living embodiment of Dan Hughes, Kim Golding, Ghandi or whoever you most admire in the world of adoption, therapeutic parenting, NVR etc. You are you. That is enough. No-one gets it right all the time
  • Start recognising how far you have come
  • Start celebrating the big, small and microscopic wins
  • Start focusing on all the times your little cactus flowers

Being a TP is hard enough without you getting all judgemental on yourself too. So give yourself a break. Remember this:

YOU. ARE. AMAZING.

 

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Escalation – A Game For All To Play

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  • Players – Two: A child who can say “no” and knows how to argue (basic technique is enough, plus a dose of sass or attitude). An adult – works best if the adult is tired, stressed (and/ or poorly), even better if played at the end of one’s tether.
  • Time – a few minutes to an hour depending on the speed of escalation
  • Game is over when – either the parent self-regulates (forfeit of game to child), or when either child or adult bursts into tears and sits on the floor with their head in their hands.

This simple game can transform tiny tasks, such as getting dressed or eating a meal, into the sort of story that your family tells for decades to come, that has the adult hanging their head in shame and may even be immortalised on social media channels such as YouTube.

How to Play

Play is generally initiated by the child, however, the game only truly begins when the adult responds by disagreeing to assert control or dominance.

Example: The adult asks the child to do something simple, e.g. brush their teeth, put clothes on, eat breakfast, stop pulling your hair.  The child responds by emphatically saying “No” or “Won’t”.

In this manner, the child extends an invitation to the adult to play the game of Escalation, should the adult respond in the appropriate manner.

Possible responses from the adult that indicate that the game has begun:

  • Yes/ Will – simple, elegant and yet a sure fire invitation to an argument your child will struggle to resist
  • Oh yes you will (adding “young man” or “young lady” scores 1 for the child as the adult is escalating too quickly, ditto any aggressive stance, hands on hips or finger wagging also scores 1 for the child)

Adult forfeits at this stage if they remain calm, refuse to be drawn into an argument, walks out of the room to calm down or attempts any self-regulatory techniques (breathing, humming, standing still, closing their eyes, listening to a favourite song). If this happens the Escalation Game is Over.

How to Start “Escalation”

The simplest way to start the game is by arguing (oh no, it isn’t). To start, one player disagrees with the other player:

  • They say No, you say Yes.
  • They say Yes, you say No.
  • They say Now, you say Never.
  • They say Will, you say Won’t.

Clearly you might clarify the argument using additional words or descriptors (such as “No I won’t wear a coat even if it’s snowing“, “Yes you bloody well will, it’s freezing out there and you will catch your death of cold“) but overall impact is one of extended, pointless, going nowhere, exhausting argument.

The argument can continue indefinitely in this manner (minutes or hours depending on the mental will and energy of the players) but is demoted to the lesser skilled Game called Contrariness.

Should anyone agree with the other person (“Yes I know that brushing your teeth is unfair/ you did it already today/ is a pain worse than death“) then the Escalation Game is Over.

Now play has commenced with an introductory argument, play move onto Escalation proper.

How to Play Escalation

Escalation involves verbal and physical ramping up of the situation, until both players are in a clear state of emotional dysregulation, shouting loudly and at its worst/ best spouting all sorts of nonsense (see Advanced Play below).

As a player, your aim is to wrestle control of the situation from the other person and have a clear upper hand.  You need to WIN, not just disagree endlessly.

Things you can do to escalate the situation include:

  • Increasing volume – your aim is to go that little bit louder or shoutier than your opponent at every volley. Do not jump to ear-splitting volume too quickly or you will lose 1 point.
  • Physical escalation – for adults this includes finger wagging, towering over your opponent in a threatening manner, hands on hips stance. For children this included stomping of feet, wild shaking of arms, angry bobbing of heads.
  • Hysteria or Melodrama – this involves spitting, head spinning, lying on the ground spinning, lying on the ground stamping arms and legs, rolling of eyes until only the whites show etc.  This is Advanced Escalation and is best reserved for trips to busy supermarkets on Saturday lunchtimes.

Bonus points – players are awarded 1 point if a bystander stops to watch, tut or frown. A further 1 point is earned if passersby swerve to avoid you, cross the road or similar (although you may be too involved in play to notice.)  5 points are earned if someone uses their mobile phone to video the Game or a neighbour knocks on the front door to ask if everything is okay.

Your aim here is to be the person who has the last word. 100 points to the person who does.

As an adult, you must never, ever, accept even the slightest responsibility for your part in escalating this situation. It is ALL. THEIR. FAULT.  If they hadn’t said no or been oppositional or just done what they were told in the first place, NONE of this would have happened.

If either player fails to get louder, or respond in due time, gives up in sheer exhaustion, or sits down in the middle of Sainsburys for a little cry, they forfeit the game.

Advanced Play

If the game does not resolve in normal play (see above) then play may move onto Advanced Play.

Assuming (and it’s pretty much a given here) that being really loud, argumentative and shouty has not resolved the situation such that your child stops, thinks for a moment (with or without stroking their chin) and then responds “You win Mummy/ Dadda. You’re so right. I don’t know why I just didn’t do it in the first place,” then you may end up in Advanced Play.  Even if it’s not on your shopping list.

Here you vainly try to wrestle control back by throwing even more of your parenting weight around (which may be even heftier given all the cake and wine you have been knocking back after days like this).

It’s time to pull out the big guns and start telling them just how you are going to make their life more miserable than this epic row in Asda has already made it. Such that you spout nonsense like: 

  • Wait until I tell your dad/ the vicar/ Nanna/ your teacher/ the dog
  • That’s IT!! You are banned from your favourite TV show/ tablet/ ipad/ hugging your teddy for the rest of today
  • As above, but longer duration such as the rest of the weekend/ month/ year/ your lifetime/ until the end of the world as we know it

Since these threats have absolutely no impact whatsoever on your child, who is currently not really listening to you anyway as their amygdala is in charge (as is yours or you wouldn’t really be punishing yourself by taking away the only sane 30 minutes of each day when your child is on their tablet or watching Scooby Doo), things may well go mental at this point.

If you are still in rant mode, then you may even end up in the Annihilation Phase.  When you say things like you will hang, drawer and quarter their favourite teddy they were given on the day of their birth/ adoption. Or you will smash their favourite toy/ tablet/ tech into a billion pieces using a coconut.  All angry raging nonsense that will only increase your guilt should you not have calmed down in time to avert such a actually-following-through-on-a-ridiculous-threat when you get home.

If you get to this level of escalation, you lose.

In fact, you lost when you started to play this stupid game in the first place. Because

NO-ONE EVER WINS THE GAME OF ESCALATION

Recently I played the game of Escalation in Tescos. I didn’t want to, or mean to, it just sort of happened when I was tired and distracted and just wanted to get home and get something to eat. I was hangry.

I said “We’re going to Tescos” and Nibbles said “No. I am not coming in.”  Which was a bit out of character and instead of sitting in the car, calming down and sorting it out before we stepped inside the shop, I made him come out and he made it perfectly clear how little he wanted to be there.

  • “No, no, no, no, no, no, no” he chanted at me, whilst pulling the trolley here, there and nowhere I wanted it to go (grr).
  • I hissed that he’d better not say “no” again.   But he’s too smart to be caught like that.
  • “Jelly, jelly, jelly, jelly” he taunted instead.
  • I gritted my teeth, I walked slowly, I tried to engage my brain, but I was fuming inside. I put him in the trolley, until he said “goody” when I quickly took him out again.
  • Bubbles stroked my arm to calm me down (and offered me an “emergency hug”). She suggested to Nibbles that he had gone “too far now, please be quiet.”
  • I gradually unravelled in the face of provocation.

Let’s just say that when he threw things at me in the car on the way home, I responded in a way I am not proud of.

It was then that I started to investigate a way of dealing with oppositional behaviour called:

Non Violent Resistance

And I hope to one day write a blog showing how I have effectively used NVR to avoid these escalations that leave me exhausted, guilty and disconnected from my children.

Because I don’t want to play this game anymore.

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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

Forgive yourself. You are only human.Facebooktwitter

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

Putting Out Fire With Fire

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When emotions run high, when the screaming starts, when her feelings burst out of her body in cries or stomps or wails… I see red. Red for anger, for danger.

And I try to fight the fire with water. Soothing the flames with the cooling quench of water.  Taking the heat of the situation. It seems logical, but it doesn’t work.

Petrol On Her Fire

The most provoking thing I can ask my child is to “please calm down.” Worse still when I use a soft soothing tone. I am fighting her amygdala with cool, calm logic, without realising that those two parts of the brain are not on speaking terms.

When I do that, her anger increases, her cries get louder and things go from bad to OMG!

Fighting Fire With Fire

When I visited the Thrive lead at her school, she gave me some advice. Advice I had read a few hours earlier in Dan Hughes book “Attachment Focused Parenting” yet I was struggling to get my head around it.  She offered me practical examples, acting it out, and suddenly the light came on.  I could see how it might work (then felt the tears well up when I recognised my own inadequacy as a parent).

Perhaps there was something in it.

So after the visit, I tried it. Fighting fire with fire. Not exactly. I wasn’t reflecting back her anger or frustration, so the emotional element was removed. But I was copying her volume, her intensity, her pace and tone.

The Impact Surprised Me

My opportunity came soon enough…

“He is SOOOOOO ANNNNNNOYING!!!!!!!!” she uttered crossly, after several months, still holding on at the top spot in the list of most commonly uttered phrases.

Before my meeting, I might have asked her curiously and gently “What is wrong?” or “Why do you say that” and received an exasperated “ARGHHH” in response as she stomped off brimming with stress.  But I didn’t.

“I can see how annoyed you are” I said quickly, sharply, echoing her own tone and pace and moving closer to her. When she didn’t bite back, I carried on “Little brothers can be annoying.”

For once she didn’t bite back or spit out more anger. This was going well.

“Let’s dance out our frustration together?” I suggested; my tone still intense, sharp, animated. I grabbed her hands whilst looking at her and commenced a pogo dance to de-stress.

We bounced a few times, then she looked at me and her face broke into a smile. And it was over before it even began.

Was It a Fluke?

After months of feeling like I was losing the battle for my daughter, for a happy family, this felt like a real achievement.

For the whole of last weekend, Andy and I responded with intensity when her brain dove into flight-fright-freeze mode.

  • “I can see how frustrated you are“
  • “You are angry about this“
  • “I know you don’t like me“
  • “It is annoying, isn’t it?“
  • “Life can feel so unfair“

Always short. Always fast delivery. Loud, but not shouting. Intense, but not emotional. Nine times out of ten, she responded well.

Within minutes the situation was calmer, and she would be out of the adrenaline-fuelled reptilian brain state.

Empathy

“YOU NEVER LISTEN TO ME” was spat with predictable regularity whenever Bubbles’ amygdala got in on the act. Even as I strained to hear every garbled noise that issues from her foaming mouth.

But not last weekend.

Her brain is not interested in logic or rational argument. It is not in play in these moments.  Her brain is reduced to emotions, and I wasn’t matching hers.  Her amygdala interpreted my lack of reaction, my soothing manner as not caring, as a disconnect between us, perhaps even as betrayal (a provocative word perhaps, but only through the filter of your logical brain).

How could I listen to what she was saying and not be moved, not be equally frustrated, not be similarly annoyed? Bubbles was searching for connection (isn’t that one of those tenets of trauma, that all behaviour is the search for connection?) and I wasn’t creating one.

But by matching her intensity, our connection was being forged rather than broken. She could feel the empathy in my response.

Connection Is Everything

Right now I feel I have been given a parenting upgrade, to version 2.1 (not the 3.0 I might desire but it’s going in the right direction).

I continue to work on matching her intensity, although I don’t always get it right and yesterday I fell into the trap of soothing, then had to ramp my intensity twice as far to recover the situation.

It seems to be working.

Wish me luck.Facebooktwitter

Walking on Broken Glass

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“What did you learn at school today?” I asked as we walked home, hand in hand.

“We learnt about willow plates” Bubbles replied.

“What’s a willow plate?” I ask, curious.

But uh oh, I’ve stood on a shard of something I didn’t see coming.

“I WAS TELLING YOU….  ARGGHH” (she pulls out of my hand, angry, defiant, stomping) “WHY DON’T YOU LISTEN? …” (her breath is fast, her heart pounding “I FEEL LIKE…”

Glass Where I Least Expect It

There are times when I anticipate an outburst. The bits that she finds tough – pretty much any time when life isn’t her favourite movie with bow-wrapped gifts and so many sweets it must be Halloween.  When screen time is up (even if it’s teatime and its her favourite meal), or she is asked to do something she doesn’t want to such as (her latest parent-induced horror) Brush. Her. Hair.

Those I can prepare myself for, hiding my good mood and optimistic outlook into a secret corner of my soul, so that I can bring it out later, still smiling.

But it’s the WTF? moments that I struggle with the most. When I am skipping along, snuggling under a blanket of pretence that our family is fine and dandy and that this is just a normal day.

I Know It’s Not About Me

My mind, my brain, rationalises these outbursts. It reminds me that this is not about me, it’s not an attack on me, it’s not because I have done or said something wrong.

And yet I still feel like a bad mother for not avoiding these incidents (by being psychic?)

And no, it’s not about her either. She is doing what her brain has been programmed to do. She crosses into fight response at the click of a neuron. She doesn’t mean to do it, she has no control over it, and even though I know all these things, I feel like somehow this is my fault.

Just another flavour of parenting guilt.

Things I Don’t Do

There are some things I know (through experience and research) will only make things worse:

  • talking to her
  • cuddling/ touching her

That is not to say I won’t talk to her about it later, but right now, she needs space and time to calm down (without my ever asking her to calm down because that provokes escalation).

The Glass Stings

This week her outburst triggered something new in me. It reminded me of my first marriage, of living with someone who was unpredictable and at times abusive.

That feeling of living on a knife-edge, of walking over a minefield, never knowing when I might say or do the wrong thing to tip him into a rage or a sulk or worse.

My daughter never lashes out physically (and I nearly typed “yet” because that is the fear inside me, that there is worse to come). At the moment, her outbursts are vocal – screaming anger as she rages at the world.

I never realised until today, that one of the barriers to my parenting Bubbles effectively is the way that her behaviour stirs up those echoes of the past (things I thought I had left firmly in the past).

This Is My Choice

And I feel guilty for even suggesting a hint of a comparison with a spoilt grown-up who should have known better.

For starters – I love my daughter dearly.

When she is calm, her loving kindness is as infinite as the sky. She will wrap her arms around me, stroke my back and fill me with love until I burst. She is bright, loving, helpful, loves books, is creative, inventive, sings, dances and more.

I chose her nearly five years ago, based on scant information. And even knowing what I know now, having experienced how her traumatic early experiences have affected her, I would chose her again.

Because sometimes being a parent you are cast as Bruce Willis in Die Hard. and you’re going to have to wrap your bare feet in a tee-shirt and walk over that broken glass, because it’s the only way out.Facebooktwitter