National Adoption Month Article #3

Feelings, Behaviors, and Relationships
(This article is based off the book “Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control.”

Visit our website at www.beyondconsequences.com)

By: Heather T. Forbes, LCSW
author of “Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control” www.BeyondConsequences.com 

Children need unconditional love and unconditional acceptance from their parents; we all know this and believe this. However, do we ever stop to consider how so many of the traditional parenting techniques accepted in our culture work contrary to this primal goal? Traditional parenting techniques that involve consequences, controlling directives, and punishment are fear-based and fear-driven. They have the ability to undermine the parent- child relationship and because they are tied into behavior, children easily interpret these actions to mean, “If I’m not good, I am not lovable.” Thus, children often build a subconscious foundation that says that love and approval is based off of performance. 

Parenting from a love-based paradigm means going beyond our children’s behavior and beyond consequences to first see that negative behavior is a form of communication and that negative behavior is a response to stress. If we see the kicking and screaming child as one who is having difficulty regulating due to an overflow of feelings, we can learn to stay present with the child in order to help him modulate these feelings and thus, help him to build his emotional regulatory system. A child kicking and screaming or in a rage is a child who has been "emotionally hijacked". Emotions are not logical or rational ; this hitting and kicking is the body's natural fear reaction gone awry. 
 

Allowing a child emotional space to safely dissipate this energy will then allow him to calm down. As we provide reassurance, unconditional love, and emotional presence for our children, the need to kick and scream will disappear. Many times our children kick and scream simply because they do not feel that they are being listened to nor do they feel as if they have been heard. Staying present and reassuring a child that you really are listening to him, can be enough to help them begin to regulate. The life lesson that kicking and screaming is inappropriate does indeed need to be reinforced. But, this life lesson can only happen once the child is fully regulated (when the child is calm) and his cognitive thinking is intact. This is also the time to present alternatives to kicking and screaming. This is a way of teaching our children instead of punishing them. The definition of discipline is to teach. The more we can stay focused on the relationship with our child and strengthening this relationship instead of controlling it through consequences, the more we will be helping our child learn to work through their stress appropriately. Below are four pointers to help you stay in a loving and emotionally open place for your children:
Just Be Happy!—But I’m not! Did anyone ever tell you, “Just think happy thoughts and it will be okay.”? Did it really work? Probably not. Emotions do not simply disappear. If feelings are not released and acknowledged, they are stored and become part of our physical make-up. Research has convincingly shown that being able to express feelings like anger and grief can improve survival rates in cancer patients. With our children, feelings that become stored and “stuffed” become activators for negative behaviors.

ALL Feelings are Good Feelings - As parents, it is important for us to understand the necessity of emotional expression, both in teaching it to our children and in modeling it to our children. Blocked feelings can inhibit growth, learning, and the building of a trusting relationship between the parent and child. The first step to take is to recognize that ALL emotions are healthy. In our culture, feelings such as joy, peace, and courage are seen as good feelings, yet feelings such as sad, mad, and scared are seen as bad feelings. Let’s rethink this to understand that it is not the feeling itself that creates negativity; it is the lack of expression of the feeling that creates negativity. And in children, this negativity is often expressed through poor behaviors. 

Getting to the Core of the Behavior – When children are acting out and being defiant, we need to begin to understand that their behaviors are simply a communication of an emotional state that is driving these behaviors. If we simply address the behavior, we miss the opportunity to help children express and understand themselves from a deeper level. Start by modeling basic feeling words to your child. Keep it simple and teach the five basic feeling words: sad, mad, bad, scared, and happy. Even the youngest of children can learn to say, “I’m mad!” When the toddler is throwing his toys or the teenager is throwing his backpack across the room, encourage him at that moment to get to the core of the behavior through emotional expression. Remember...it really isn’t about the toys or the backpack; and they really do know better than to do the negative behaviors.

Responding vs. Reacting – So the next time your child becomes defiant, talks back, or is simply “ugly” to you, work to be in a place not to react to the behavior, but respond to your child. Respond to your child in an open way—open to meeting him in his heart and helping him understand the overload of feelings that are driving the behaviors. He doesn’t need a consequence or another parental directive at that moment; he just needs you to be present with him. As your children learn to respond back to you through the parent-child relationship, they won’t have the need to communicate through negative behaviors anymore. You’ll both have more energy for each other, building a relationship that will last a lifetime. _______________________________________________________________________
About the Author:
Heather T. Forbes, LCSW
Heather Forbes, LCSW, is the co-founder of the Beyond Consequences Institute, LLC. Ms. Forbes has been training in the field of trauma and attachment with nationally recognized, first-generation attachment therapists since 1999. She has been active in the field of adoption with experience ranging from pre-adoption to post-adoption clinical work. Ms. Forbes is an internationally published author, with her most recent book titled, Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control: A Love-based Approach for Helping Attachment-Challenged Children With Severe Behaviors, endorsed by Sir
Richard Bowlby, son of John Bowlby. As a speaker, her passion for families is known throughout the nation. Ms. Forbes consults and coaches both nationally and internationally with families struggling with children with severe behaviors. Much of her experience and insight on understanding trauma, disruptive behaviors, and attachment related issues has come from her direct mothering experience of her two adopted children.

Becoming the Parental Sponge

			From Heather’s Daily Reflection: www.beyondconsequences.com/daily.html “In order for children to open up to their past trauma memories, the parent has to be willing to be a ‘parental sponge’—acknowledging, absorbing, and experiencing every feeling, every tear, and every fear associated with the trauma. Now that is connection!” Q: I just read my first reflection, regarding being a parental sponge and while I agree with the spirit of it, my concern is this: “Experiencing your child's or client's trauma at such an intensity, couldn't that create trauma for the person being the ‘sponge’?" I feel I am very empathic but how can I do that without hurting myself?
A: This is an insightful question. Traditionally, most of us are empathic and give compassion in a way that ultimately drains us. This is because of a core belief that tells us that by giving empathy, we will be able to make this person better or that we have the ability to “fix” the problem for this person. We believe that it is up to us to get this person to shift into a calm, peaceful, and regulated state. Their issue then becomes our issue and we stay focused on the outcome of them being better. It becomes a simple mathematical equation. If I give empathy (E), if I listen (L), and if I spend my time with this person (T) , he will be better (B). E + L + T = B Yet, when we give these three and the result is not what we expected, we feel a sense of failure. We turn it back on ourselves and hear the old negative tapes playing in our head, “I didn’t try hard enough.” “I’m not good enough.” “I should have done something different.” BAM! The negative feedback loop then feeds on itself right within our own mind. Fatigue, overwhelm, and even resentment begin to brew within our internal selves. In order to be a sponge, the only action we need to take is to simply be present with our child (or friend, spouse, coworker). It is not up to us to make this person better. The reality is that we cannot change or fix another person. We can surround them with support; we can love them unconditionally, free of judgment or control; we can set appropriate boundaries, and we can align with their pain. Yet in doing this, it is still ultimately up to them to make their life work. Additionally, if we enter into an interaction with a child, expecting him/her to be better, we are actually adding more stress to the equation, which will create more fear and hinder the healing process. We must stay focused on giving our love without expecting anything in return. That is the essential definition of love. Entering into an interaction with an expectation of an outcome is not true love. This is conditional love. Conditional love drains us. Unconditional love energizes and liberates us. So that is the theory and I know you are reading this and wanting some meat to chew on—you want application to your 16-year-old teenager whose girlfriend just dumped him and he is feeling like the entire world is coming to an end. You see how his past abandonment issues are being triggered and how this situation is being magnified due to his early adoption history. Reprogram your thinking to see that what he needs is your support, your attention, and your unconditional acceptance. It is not up to you to make this okay for him. Trust that it is in the struggles of life that we learn and grow to our maximum potential. By being empathetic, by listening, by spending time, and being present with him you are doing EVERYTHING for him. Stay focused on the outcome of you being the absolute best parent you can be, no matter the outcome of his emotional state at the moment. Your “success” cannot be tied to his feeling better instantaneously. Keep being the sponge for your child’s pain. Become energized by the power of putting unconditional love into action. There is no greater state to be in on this planet! Press on,
Heather T. Forbes, LCSW Parent and Author of Beyond Consequences, Logic & Control: Volume 1 & Volume 2, Dare to Love, and Help for Billy.

When Your Child Hates Everything

			Q: My 8-year-old son "hates" everything: the particular car driving down the street, the shirt I'm wearing, the kid next door, the color of the living room, the cashier at the grocery store, etc., etc. I am having trouble understanding this and how to deal with it. Any insights? A: I'm certain that this is a maddening place to be with your son and that it feels as if nothing will make him happy. I'm certain that any positive energy you try to send his way is met with resistance and negativity.
In order to reverse your child's perception of the world as negative, it will first take a new understanding of why he "hates" everything. When children's needs are met early in their development, their blueprint for the world becomes positive and optimistic. When a baby is crying and sending out stress signals, he is in need of nurturing and comforting care. When this is given to him, his system is shifted back to a state of regulation and the world is a good place-he develops a sense of optimism. If he is not cared for and if he is left on his own to navigate through his internal stress, the world becomes a scary place. Negative repetitious conditioning breeds an outlook of pessimism. No matter how much he cries, no matter what he does, he can't seem to convince his caretakers to help him. Helplessness and overwhelm prevail. For such a child, nothing is working, so his universal blueprint of "nothing being right" is being created. A child who "hates" everything is a child in a perpetual state of fear and dysregulation. His neurophysiological system has been programmed to see the world as half empty instead of half full. He truly doesn't know that everything is going to be all right. He really doesn't know that good always overcomes evil. Essentially, he is programmed to live an operatic tragedy instead of a light-hearted drama. Think about this...isn't it great to simply go to Netflix and pick out what kind of movie you want? Maybe it is a romantic comedy; maybe it is an action movie; maybe even during this Halloween season it is a horror flick. But in our own realities, we don't have the luxury of returning one life and checking out another so quickly. What we do have are three key elements to make significant changes to our life stories: 1) understanding, 2) relationship, and 3) plasticity. The first of these, understanding, was addressed in the beginning of this article. The second, relationships, is something that is always available to initiate. Healing happens in the context of relationships, and most fervently through the context of the parent-child relationship. And third, plasticity, is what an 8-year-old has plenty of. The brain continues to make major changes until we are 25 years old. Your child needs to know that the world is safe and good. In order to do this, it will take creating a deeper relationship with him. It will take helping him to express himself at a deeper level. The next time he makes a negative statement, such as, "I hate the shirt you are wearing," sit with him and listen to him. Ask him more about what he hates. Validate his negativity instead of trying to convince him of something more positive. "You really do hate this shirt. Wow. Help me understand how much you hate it. Tell me more." As he expresses himself, help him shift into the feelings behind these words. (It's really not about the shirt.) "How does that make you feel?" Essentially, his "I hate the world" statements are indicators of his own internal reality: "The world hates me and I don't even deserve to be in this world." When a child (or adult) feels this depth of darkness from within himself, it makes sense as to why all his comments are negative towards his external environment. Think about a time when you were just in a bad mood. Nothing seemed to be right; nothing seemed to be the way you wanted it to be. Your perception of the world matched your negative framework. So, it is the same with your child, simply at a deeper level within the core of his being. When you can help him to move into this core area within himself by listening, validating, maximizing, tolerating, accepting, and staying present with him, you'll be there in relationship to guide him towards feeling safe and loved. Thus, you'll be able to guide him to see that the world is good and hope does exist. It will take positive repetitious conditioning to do this for him (see Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control, Chapter 3). The reason this works is because our neurological systems are "plastic." We have the ability to change and be molded, especially children. Your son is growing and developing everyday. He still has years ahead of him to create new neuropathways. Every interaction with you is an opportunity to literally change his brain and lay down new neuropatterns of positive thought and positive outlook. Work to stay in a place of understanding, keep yourself regulated, and know that through loving influence, you have the ability to create exactly the environment he needs for healing, hope, and optimism. Press on,
Heather T. Forbes, LCSW Parent and Author of Beyond Consequences, Logic & Control: Volume 1 & Volume 2, Dare to Love, and Help for Billy.

National Adoption Month Article #2

 Every November, a Presidential Proclamation launches activities and celebrations to help build awareness of adoption throughout the nation. Thousands of community organizations arrange and host programs, events, and activities to share positive adoption stories, challenge the myths, and draw attention to the thousands of children in foster care who are waiting for permanent families. For the whole month of November I will be sharing some of my most popular articles along with various specials. Giving parents the resources they need to become a successful parent is something we are passionate about at Beyond Consequences Institute.This article was originally published in the Journal of Social Work but a great read for any adoptive parent.

Issues Facing Adoptive Mothers of Children with Special Needs

Click here to read the article:

http://www.beyondconsequences.com/issues.pdf

National Adoption Month Article #1

Every November, a Presidential Proclamation launches activities and celebrations to help build awareness of adoption throughout the nation. Thousands of community organizations arrange and host programs, events, and activities to share positive adoption stories, challenge the myths, and draw attention to the thousands of children in foster care who are waiting for permanent families. For the whole month of November I will be sharing some of my most popular articles along with various specials. Giving parents the resources they need to become a successful parent is something we are passionate about at Beyond Consequences Institute.

Reactive Attachment Disorder: A New Understanding

Reactive attachment disorder (RAD) is a mental health diagnosis listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IVTR) under disorders usually first diagnosed in infancy, childhood, or adolescence. RAD was initially introduced to the mental health community some 20 years ago. Since that time, much of the information regarding this disorder has painted a dismal and often dangerous picture of these children. Books and articles have compared children with RAD to serial killers, rapists, and hard-core criminals. Intensive and often physically aggressive therapies have been developed to treat these children. Additionally, unconventional parenting techniques have been taught to parents in order to control these children—children referred to as “disturbed” or “unattached.”

The main premise of RAD is that the child cannot socially connect or attach to others in interpersonal relationships. Behaviors inhibiting attachment to caretakers are often demonstrated by children diagnosed with RAD. Some of the behavioral symptoms published in literature include the following: oppositional; frequent and intense anger outbursts, manipulative or controlling; little or no conscience; destructive to self, others, and property; cruelty to animals or killing animals; gorging or hoarding food; and preoccupation with fire, blood, or violence.

Wow! Read that list again. Many of these behaviors sound downright frightening. It is hard to imagine that a child can do these things. Yet, while these behaviors certainly appear abnormal for anyone, especially a child, they are actually quite reasonable reactions to the experiences these children have endured. Read on….

There are many life events that can cause attachment trauma between the primary caretaker (usually the mother) and the child. These include an unwanted pregnancy, separation from the birthmother due to adoption, death of a parent, premature birth, inconsistent caretakers, abuse, neglect, chronic pain, long-term hospitalizations with separations from the mother, and parental depression. Such life events interrupt a child’s ability to learn to self-regulate through the relationship with the parent.

Typically, when a baby or small child is in a state of stress, he cries and the parent attends to the child’s needs, whether by feeding, rocking, or simply holding him. Each and every one of these interactions with the parent plays a critical part in assisting the development of the child’s neuro-physiological control system—the system that allows the child to return back to a calm state. It is truly through this parent-child relationship that we as humans learn how to self-regulate in order to stay balanced and easily shift from a state of stress back to a state of calm. This regulatory mechanism within us is not “online” at birth, and brain research has shown that it takes up to thirty months before this part of the brain is fully developed. Within this thirty-month timeframe, a well-attuned parent has connected with this child to calm his stress response system thousands, if not millions, of

--> times. How critical these first thirty months are to a baby! It is through the parent-child relationship that a child’s self-regulatory ability becomes engaged. This internal regulatory system then sets the foundation for the child’s neurological, physical, emotional, behavioral, cognitive, and social development.

When a child does not receive loving, nurturing care, the child’s ability to develop a sufficient regulatory system is severely compromised. In cases of severe neglect and abuse, the child’s life is literally at risk. For these children, their internal survival mechanisms become activated, dedicating all the body’s resources to remain alert in “survival mode.” These children perceive the world as threatening from a neurological, physical, emotional, cognitive, and social perspective. These children operate from a paradigm of fear to ensure their safety and security. Hence, we see an overly stressed-out child who has difficulty interacting in relationships, who struggles to behave in a loving way, who quite often cannot think clearly, and who swings back and forth in his emotional states due to an underdeveloped regulatory system. While perceived by most professionals as dangerous, a child with RAD is essentially a scared and stressed child living out of a primal survival mode in order to maintain his existence. 

With this understanding, the term “attachment-challenged” becomes more appropriate to use with children instead of the traditional label of “RAD child.”  In times of stress, this child is challenged to connect and his ability to make connection is restricted.  In fact, we all become attachment-challenged to some degree when we’re stressed.  Reflect for a moment on the last time you were overly stressed: How did you react when someone tried to interact with you? Be honest! Perhaps you had difficulty interacting appropriately. Stress causes confused and distorted thinking, and it constricts us emotionally, leaving little room for relationships. Thus, a child with a traumatic history who is living in a stressful, fear-based state, simply is not capable of nor equipped to be in a relationship. From a behavioral standpoint, a child living in a state of fear simply cannot act in a loving way. The frightening behaviors listed above are only external reflections of the internal fear and chaos within these children. They are simply behaviors that are intended for survival.

Treatment for the attachment-challenged  child needs to address this internal fear. When the child’s stress state can be soothed, and the deep wounds driving the fearful behaviors can be acknowledged, the child has an opportunity for healing. Yes, healing is possible, but it takes intense work and many, many repetitions of positive experiences to recondition the body’s reactions. It is also essential that the therapeutic attachment techniques and parenting paradigms enlisted for these children be grounded in neurological research and based in love and compassion. Such techniques can offer ways to create peaceful environments within the home that work to recreate safety and security in the insecure foundations set within these children.

A word of caution from the author: Some therapists specializing in attachment therapy work from a fear-based platform and recommend techniques that are confrontational, aggressive, child-centered instead of family-centered, and fear-based. While these techniques sometimes offer short-term results, families using them are often faced with more severe long-term pain and challenges. Many of these therapies and therapists have separated themselves from dangerous techniques that have resulted in the tragic death of children in the past; however, they continue to lack compassion and are grounded in fear. Some examples of these techniques include instructing parents to force eye contact with their children; have children do excessive chores to feel a part of the family system; send children to respite care out of the home for making poor choices; give up their need to communicate love to their children; and put locks on the outside of children’s doors to keep them “safe.” When looking for appropriate interventions for families, be alert to these specific techniques.

Be aware, as well, of techniques that talk in general about gaining control of a child and viewing the child as manipulative. These techniques are child-blaming, parent-controlling, and devoid of scientific research. It is counterproductive to feed more fear into an already scared child. When seeking help, it is highly recommended that you have a thorough understanding of the basis for each therapy being considered.

When parents first begin realizing that they are dealing with an attachment-challenged child, they have likely already experienced many severe and disruptive behaviors in their homes. In these experiences, they themselves often begin to slip into their own fear and see the child as a threat (at times so threatening that they simply want the child out of their home, forever). Because the behaviors can be so intense, it is easy to lose sight of the child’s reality—that of a young person living in a world of pain, fear, and isolation.

As a therapist specializing in working with attachment-challenged children, I am overwhelmed by great sadness every time I initially speak with a parent seeking help for their family. This sadness stems from the realization that all of these wounds and pain could have been avoided. Babies are born in a spirit of love, but it is life’s circumstances that shift them into a spirit of fear. All it takes to maintain this spirit of love is high quality care giving; it takes an emotionally available parent to create a secure and loving base for a child. Attachment Parenting in the formative years, from conception to three years old, sets the foundation for all future relationships, and it gives the child’s body’s own internal regulatory system the opportunity to develop to its fullest. The old adage, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” says everything in the context of Attachment Parenting.

If you’re currently struggling with a child(ren) exhibiting symptoms of RAD who’s early beginnings were far from nurturing and secure, I want to encourage you to have hope.  

 

Several years ago, I found myself in the same situation, waking up every morning wondering how I was going to make it through the day.  In learning more about my children and understanding that their behaviors were driven from a deeply wounded place, I was able to parent them in a way that allowed healing to begin.  Yes, it is hard work and it takes endurance and faith, but creating a peaceful home is possible!

Heather T. Forbes, LCSW

heather@beyondconsequences.com

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The Awakening of Trauma Within You

						Q: I listened to the Beyond Consequences Toddler audio CD and the topic of "how parents can learn to self-regulate" came up. I became VERY emotional. I was sobbing uncontrollably. My reactions to my child's negative behaviors are so immediate and ingrained. How do I get past this? I can't seem to find a good therapist in my area that understands the depth of my fear. A: A child living at a high level of stress and fear has the ability to open up a parent's own unresolved traumatic memories. While we resist the child's ability to open up our own dormant trauma, the truth is that this dynamic
our child brings to us is an incredible gift in our midst. Working through these memories and experiences takes first courage, then the right resources, and lastly commitment. Finding the courage within you is the key. It is scary to allow these past fears to come up to the surface after working so hard for so many years to keep them buried and "under control." While individual therapy can help to work you through your pain from the past, sometimes it takes more intensive work. Other ways to help you stay regulated include the following: 1. Create a support system around you. You need someone to turn to when you get dysregulated. Having someone simply listen to you, without trying to solve it all for you, can be golden. 2. Devote time every day to contemplative prayer or meditation. Creating a time to calm your nervous system everyday is critical to your well-being. 3. Take care of yourself by working to find balance in your life. Objectively look at pieces in your life that are creating more stress. You have permission to make the changes you need in your life, even if others do not agree with you. Be sure to make good nutrition and exercise a requirement of your lifestyle. 4. Recognize that it is not your child's responsibility to love you. This is your responsibility. Love and forgiveness are the most powerful regulatory "tools" we have as human beings.
5. Address any marital issues that have not been resolved. If your spouse is not loving you and relating to you in the way you need him/her, than you may subconsciously be looking for this through your children. Find a marriage support group or seek marital therapy if needed. 6. Develop a list of resources that help you find peace. This may include such things as a bubble bath, listening to classical music, Monday night football, team sports, journaling, sketching, knitting, etc. 7. Take responsibility for past relationships that are in tension, such as with a parent or a sibling. Rise above the fray and apologize, ask for forgiveness, and let the past be the past. Remember that this person may not be in a place to reciprocate a similar response but you have done what you need to in order to move forward in your own life. You deserve to be able to move out of the past and it is your responsibility to move into a place of love within your life in the present and in the future. 8. Breathe. The quickest way to calm yourself in the moment is through breathing. It may seem like such a simple tool, but in times of stress, we typically stop breathing. Holding our breath only serves to exasperate and increase our stress level. Breathe in for a count of four, hold your breath for a count of seven, and breathe out for a count of eight. This is known as 4-7-8 breathing. Oxygen is always available to you and it is the most effective way to settle a nervous system. 9. Take a time out. If you get to a point of complete overwhelm and know that you are about to say something negative or act threatening to your child, give yourself permission to take a time out. Let your child know you are not leaving for good and that you are just going to your room for five minutes to calm down in order to be a better mommy or daddy. 10. Forgive yourself. Most importantly, it takes forgiving yourself for the way you have acted in relationship with your children in the past. For my own healing process, it took digging deep within me to forgive myself for being the most dysregulated mother on the planet. We come into our parenting roles with programs from our past. These programs put us in a place to act in a way that is based on our past experiences. Healing happens in this very moment by forgiving yourself and making a commitment to act differently next time. The only moment you have with your children is now, so letting the past be the past is the best placed to find the regulation you are seeking. You have it in you to make your world work for you and your family. It takes courage, tenacity, and 100% commitment. Anything is possible and I encourage you to keep pressing on with the vision of hope, healing, and peace. Press on,
Heather T. Forbes, LCSW Parent and Author of Beyond Consequences, Logic & Control: Volume 1 & Volume 2, and Dare to Love, & Help for Billy

Beyond Consequences 101 - A Guide for Your Relative

				Q: I need a quick way to explain to my parents (who will be visiting during the holidays) what is meant by "Parenting Beyond Consequences." They don't seem to understand the way I'm parenting and are quite critical of me. They aren't interested in the neuroscience or the brain research. They're simply coming from the old school of the basics, so any help you have would be appreciated!
A: Beyond Consequences can be a difficult concept to understand and to "wrap your brain around" when you've been living in a more traditional mindset for years, even generations. Love is about meeting people where they are and respecting their perspectives. Understanding that your parents are looking through the lens of the "old school" is the first place to start. From such a point of reference, this model is sometimes interpreted as if you're coddling or babying your child. The following explanation is written in more general terms in order to help a grandparent, relative, or anyone, begin to make a shift. Remember to be patient with them; you're shifting an entire paradigm and framework of interpretation. Children need unconditional love and unconditional acceptance from their parents; we all know this and believe this. However, do we ever stop to consider how so many of the traditional parenting techniques accepted in our culture work contrary to this primal goal? Traditional parenting techniques that involve consequences, controlling directives, and punishment are fear-based and fear-driven. They have the ability to undermine the parent-child relationship and because they are tied into behavior, children easily interpret these actions to mean, "If I'm not good, I am not lovable." Thus, children often build a subconscious foundation that says that love and approval is based off of performance. Parenting from a love-based paradigm means going beyond our children's behavior and beyond consequences to first see that negative behavior is a form of communication and that negative behavior is a response to stress. If we see the kicking and screaming child as one who is having difficulty regulating due to an overflow of feelings and stress, we can learn to stay present with the child in order to help him modulate these overwhelming feelings and overabundance of stress and thus, help him to build his regulatory system. This is a child who has been "emotionally hijacked." Emotions are not logical or rational; this negative acting-out is the body's natural fear reaction gone awry. Allowing a child emotional space to safely dissipate this energy will then allow him to calm down. As we provide reassurance, unconditional love, and emotional presence for our children, the need to act-out will disappear. Many times our children act-out simply because they do not feel that they are being listened to nor do they feel as if they have been heard. Staying present and reassuring a child that you really are listening to him, can sometimes be enough to help him begin to regulate. The life lesson that the bad behavior is inappropriate does indeed need to be taught and reinforced. However, this life lesson can only happen once the child is fully regulated (when the child is calm) and his cognitive thinking is intact. This is also the time to present alternatives to the negative acting-out behavior. This is how we teach our children instead of punishing them. The definition of discipline is to teach. The more we can stay focused on the relationship with our children and strengthening this relationship instead of controlling it through consequences, logic, and control, the more we will be helping our children learn to work through their stress appropriately. Below are four pointers to going beyond consequences: 1. Just Be Happy!-But I'm not! Did anyone ever tell you, "Just think happy thoughts and it will be okay."? Did it really work? Probably not. Emotions do not simply disappear. If feelings are not acknowledged and released, they are stored and become part of our physical make-up. Research has convincingly shown that being able to express feelings like anger and grief can improve survival rates in cancer patients. With our children, feelings that become stored and "stuffed" become activators for negative behaviors. 2. ALL Feelings are Good Feelings - As parents, it is important for us to understand the necessity of emotional expression, both in teaching it to our children and in modeling it to them. Blocked feelings can inhibit growth, learning, and the building of a trusting relationship between the parent and child. The first step to take is to recognize that ALL emotions are healthy. In our culture, feelings such as joy, peace, and courage are seen as good feelings, yet feelings such as sad, mad, and scared are seen as negative feelings. We must rethink our interpretion so this: Negative feelings don't create acting-out behaviors; it is the lack of expression of the negative feelings that creates the acting out. 3. Get to the Core of the Behavior - When children are acting out and being defiant, we need to begin to understand that their behaviors are simply a communication of an dysregulated state that is driving these behaviors. If we simply address the behavior, we miss the opportunity to help children express and understand themselves from a deeper regulatory and emotional level. We need to help our children build their emotional intelligence. Start by modeling basic feeling words to your child. Keep it simple and teach the five basic feeling words: sad, mad, bad, scared, and happy. Even the youngest of children can learn to say, "I'm mad!" When the toddler is throwing his toys or the teenager is having his version of a tantrum, encourage him at that moment to get to the core of the behavior through emotional expression. Remember:…it really isn't about the behavior. They really do know better than to do these things. 4. Responding vs. Reacting - So the next time your child becomes defiant, talks back, or is simply "ugly" to you, work to be in a place not to react to the behavior, but respond to your child. Respond to your child in an open way-open to meeting him in his heart and helping him understand the overload of feelings that are driving the behaviors. He doesn't need a consequence or another parental directive at that moment; he just needs you to be present with him (this does not mean you agree with the behavior, it means you are not correlating his behavior with your acceptance of him as a person). As your child learns to respond back to you positively through the parent-child relationship, he won't have the need to communicate through negative behaviors anymore. You'll both have more energy for each other, building a relationship that will last a lifetime and more energy to learn how to do it differently the next time. For more parenting tips, check out some of my videos on Youtube:       1.)  Sibling Rivalry       2.)  The Missing Piece       3.)  The Parent's Stress       4.)  Chores       5.)  Overwhelm Happy hoidays and remember, it's not a behavioral problem; it's a regulatory problem! Press on,
Heather T. Forbes, LCSW Parent and Author of Beyond Consequences, Logic & Control: Volume 1 & Volume 2, Dare to Love, and Help for Billy.