“Can you please put on your shoes so we can get going?” This was my third time asking my son to do so, and this time, it was more of an angry sounding demand than an even-toned request. After no response (again) and it being 5 pm on a Thursday afternoon (which meant I was hungry and tired), I loudly pleaded, “Please just put your shoes on already!” The moment those words left my mouth my son broke down crying….
It’s easy to opt out of doing something because you feel afraid. Your pulse may race, you may shake, you may experience anxiety and conjure up negative thoughts and stories in your mind. When we feel afraid, it’s common to want to run away from whatever is causing us to be afraid. Unfortunately, though, we would likely miss out on many beneficial life experiences if we avoided everything that elicited fear in our minds and bodies. If you read my…
It never ceases to amaze me how kids are far more comfortable with topics that we as adults often find “off limits” or taboo to bring up openly. My 3-year-old has continually been processing her experience of my father’s death out loud with us. She will regularly — and matter-of-factly — state, “Baca died.” (Baca is the name my son came up with for my dad when he was a baby.) Sometimes my daughter asks me “When will I die?”…
My son fell off his scooter the other night. He did not get badly injured, but he scraped his hand and he kept saying how much it hurt. I had the sense it was one of those injuries where you have that constant stinging feeling for a while, and since he hadn’t experienced a scrape like this before, it really bothered him. After some tears, he looked up at me and desperately asked, “Mommy, can you fix it?” In that…
These are words I regularly need to remind myself. Asking for help and support can be very difficult for me, which is ironic given that so much of my career has been spent helping others and encouraging people to ask for the help they need. Yet when it comes to me, it is almost as if I feel I have to give myself permission. The more I sit with this, though, the more I realize that not only is it…
I recently registered for an exciting training that covers an area of therapy that I’ve been wanting to gain experience in. As part of the application process, I was asked to submit my resume. While the nerd in me was very excited to list and organize my experience, the inner critic in me was less enthused. Having been out of the workforce for a few years, my immediate response to seeing the resume requirement was to have thoughts about how…
About 5 years ago I started meditating regularly. I was a new parent and wanted to create space for myself every day, even if it was only for a few minutes. I started using an app to meditate and tried to make it a daily routine, though of course missed days (sometimes even weeks) here and there. Fast forward to a few weeks ago. I was at a 251 day meditation streak. Whether it was 3 minutes, 5 minutes, or…
In the last three posts I covered the C-A-L of CALM: Compassion, Approach, Label. In this last post, I want to complete with a discussion of M: Model: demonstrate coping skills I like to think of this stage as being one you can use both during and after the storm of the tantrum. Part of modeling involves setting limits. You can make space for all of your child’s feelings and go through the first three steps (showing them compassion, approaching…
Here is Step 3 in “CALM”: Label: Help them identify their emotions and hold them safely It can be really hard for a young child to know what they’re feeling, particularly when in a heightened emotional place. Help them to understand their feelings and label them, without assuming. For instance, when my daughter is inconsolable I may ask her “Are you feeling sad or angry right now?” Giving a menu of a couple of emotions can be helpful so the…
With everything going on, I didn’t follow up on this post as quickly as intended. So I decided to beat this week to the punch (and hopefully there are no new punches this week, please!) and post step 2 now. As a reminder, I had come up with the acronym “CALM” to offer steps to weather the storm of a child’s tantrum. You can review the first step, “Compassion”, linked here. Now on to the next step! Approach (and allow):…