I must be doing this wrong. HELP!! on reflecting feelings.

[cklewis]

I thought I was "in the groove" with this, but I guess not.

DS is 26.5mo. We think he's in disequilibrium. He'll have big, big feelings. Like yesterday when a noodle dropped on the floor. We were in a restaurant, and there's no way anybody human is eating that noodle. So he gets big feelings and I say, "Yes, you're disappointed." He bellows sharply, "NO!" I say, "That's not kind. We don't talk that way to each other. . . . You're having big feelings." He says again, "NNNNOOOOO!" :shifty Hmmm. Okay. Well.

I repeat, "That's not kind. We don't talk that way to each other." And that's it. I keep my mouth shut. And sit there and try to think about what could possibly be bugging him. The reflecting feelings seems to irritate him. At least right now. Maybe I'm reflecting the WRONG feelings? Maybe I need to say it less calm and more like he's feeling it (does that make sense?). Like "Wow -- you're MAD!" More like Harvey Carp says. Maybe I'm too cool.

He really, really notices when Mommy's mad. :shifty Like I stubbed my toe in the bathroom and pounded on the wall. For DAYS he was pounding on the wall bellowing "OUCH! OUCH!!" just like Mommy. :blush

I tend to kind of shut down when he has big feelings. Oh. . . . shut down isn't the right term. I tend to go real low in my voice and slow down and try to almost whisper. Maybe that's invalidating? I thought it was being bigger than his big feelings. :scratch

So, I'm cornfused. What do you all think? Any clues in that?

C

[MarynMunchkins]

Try suggesting how he feels instead of telling him. :) "You sound disappointed." or "You look angry." My kids need to be in charge of their emotions, and telling them how they feel instead of suggesting it makes things worse. :rolleyes2

I don't think being quiet is a bad thing. :shrug Or venting your own emotions. :no

[cklewis]

OKay, Mary. Maybe that's it. :think I can see that. Off to practice, "You SOUND. . . ." and "You LOOK. . . ."

C

[Chris3jam]

I agree with Mary. 'Reflecting' feelings does *not* work well with any of my kids. . .at all. It has to be their own feelings. . . I can say, "You look mad." or, "you sound so upset" or something like that. But they hit the roof when I 'tell' them how they feel. And then again, when I tell them "it'll be ok". . .I get better communication when I just hold them or agree with their big feelings. I agree with how bad it really is ( :giggle), and then we can work from there.

[Aerynne]

Another thing is that it's important to sound like you think the child feels. If a child has big feelings, talk with big inflections and big facial expressions about it. A flat "You sound angry" is not going to get great results. Not sure if you're already doing this or not, but I wanted to throw it out as an idea.

[Chris3jam]

A flat "You sound angry" is not going to get great results.

Yeah. . .that's a little of what I was getting at. . . .they get more upset if I sound 'condescending'. If they're stomping their feet at something, and I do sort of a little stomp, too, to commiserate, I guess, it helps 'validate' that feeling and we can go ahead and deal with it and jperhaps figure out what we can do next time. Of course, my kids are a little older. . . .

(and, yes, my 9 yo uses words like 'reiterate', 'commiserate' and such. :grin :O)

[cklewis]

Well, I work hard at not sounding condescending. Really work. But I'm unlikely to match his pitch and volume in a restaurant. :shifty At home, no problem. But in a restaurant, I, . . . well. . . . :shrug

C

[Chris3jam]

But I'm unlikely to match his pitch and volume in a restaurant. At home, no problem. But in a restaurant, I, . . . well. . . .

:laughtears :laughtears Yeah, I doubt I could match my kids' intensity *anywhere*, even if I tried, but if I have sort of the appropriate facial expression and really sort of 'join' them in their 'world', it seems to help. For instance (I realize i haven't done a very good job explaining this), my dd has this 'lip quiver' thing. Dh laughs at it. . it makes her angry and very hurt. :( I get down to her level, face to face, and 'join' her in her 'emotion', and do not negate it or dismiss it. I pooch out my lip, and look downcast. I think getting close, and on the same 'level', eye-to-eye, really, really helps. In a restaurant, I will get out of my seat to do it.

I realize I have *not* explained this well. I seem to be having trouble today. :( I guess you kinda have to be there. :shrug

[cklewis]

No, no, Chris. .. . I get it. In fact, when I shut up and don't say anything in these moments, I have a sad face on -- like I'm actually reflecting his feelings in my facial expression but not saying a word. Maybe THAT's why he calms down. :scratch

He gets such a giggle out of pounding his fist on the table. I mean, DH and I are pretty expressive, and when we're talking emphatically we gesture like that. And when we're laughing, DH will pound his fist on the table for emphasis. We do a lot of pounding, I guess. And DS loves to imitate that.

He also loves that part in the Mr. Roger's song about big feelings, "do you pound some clay or some dough?"

Maybe I need to pound more. . . .

C

[Chris3jam]

I mean, DH and I are pretty expressive, and when we're talking emphatically we gesture like that.

I'm the expressive one. I gesture a lot. Dh is not. Dh does not. I have *very* *very* confused kids. :O :P

[hsgbdmama]

Do you also explain why he cannot have the noodle? "That noodle fell on the floor and the floor is dirty, we don't eat food that falls on a dirty floor so we don't get sick. You have more noodles on your plate here to eat, okay?" Accompanying the big feelings with a logical explanation has helped diffuse things here (and Issac is old enough to start understanding this, and I think they appreciate that you take the time to explain things to them (although it might not seem so at the time :giggle ). :shrug :hug

[milkmommy]

He bellows sharply, "NO!" I say, "That's not kind. We don't talk that way to each other. . . . You're having big feelings." He says again, "NNNNOOOOO!" shifty Hmmm. Okay. Well.

I think sometimes when we start with thats unkind or inaapropiate its invalidating their feelings before we get the chance to validate them. Like saying I don't care why your screaming just don't.. (though umm sometimes I do feel that way :O)
Just on the dropped food one thing I've learned with DD is sometimes she needs to kinda feel closure soo to say. Known dropped food causes big feeling because shes aware it doesn't belong on the floor, so often we can avoid true melt down by allowing her to pick it up and throw it away or say place in in a napkin at a restraunt. I ussually say something like. Oh no the pastas on the floor can you quietly pick it up and "put it in the trash" or put it in this napkin. (a wet wipe handy if in a dirty area).

Deanna

[cklewis]

Okay. Okay. That all makes sense. . . . Maybe we're getting to something here.

Because Daddy can lean over and get the noodle and find closure. Mommy can't lean over. :shrug I mean, you know -- I'm HUGE! He dropped a noodle or a fork or something while Daddy was at the table, and the big feelings got reflected and "digested" more quickly than when Mommy couldn't take care of it. Maybe THAT's what was vexing him, little 2.5yo that he is. He wanted me to pick it up to be neat!

And Jodi -- on the explanation. . . . I know I didn't explain that yesterday. Sometimes I do, but I didn't do that yesterday. Hmmm. . . . :think

Okay. Here's another scenario. Last night too. DS had STINKY pants. Mommy says, "You can watch Blue's Clues ONE MORE TIME, and then we're going upstairs to clean pants and have a snuggle bath." It was getting late. He stunk. I couldn't be in the same room with those pants. We needed to move on with the evening, etc. He had already watched BCs about a jillion times, so I thought that was fair.

I reminded him of that half-way through.

Blue's Clues is done. He starts saying, "More, more, more, more. . . ." Mommy says, "We can watch more after we change pants and have our bath. You can watch it in Mommy's bed (big treat to him. He loves to watch stuff WITH Mommy in the big bed)." Doesn't work. :hissyfit

Now, if I were more agile and were contracting less, I'd just pick him up and tote him upstairs. If DH were there, I'd say, "Honey, could you please just carry him upstairs?" BUt I was alone and 9mo preg. So. . . .

He laid at the bottom of the stairs and cried, "MORE BLUE'S CLUES. I WANNA WATCH BLUE'S CLUES!!" :hissyfit Sigh. . . . I said flatly (because I was trying to keep control of my own big feelings now), "You're angry." Now, I know I should have said, "You sound angry." THat I can handle.

But it continued. Finally, I just walked upstairs. I said, "Mommy will be upstairs getting your bath ready." He did follow, whining the whole way, but he followed. And he was fine.

Is that okay? What do you all think?

C

[lumpofclay]

It's been a while since I had a 26 month old, but I'm pretty sure you did okay. :)

Well, except that I wouldn't have offered to watch it again in Mommy's bed...after saying "one last time." It seems little, but I've learned not to "give in" without some sort of explanation. I haven't had to do it in a while, but sometimes I've said something like, "I can tell doing X is really important to you, so I can reconsider letting you do that. First I need you to do Y," or something like that. It doesn't sound reasonable to say all that to a screaming 26 month old though! :O

I frequently find myself reading your threads because your DS is right at a year older than our DS, and I'm hoping to learn from your experiences. ;)

One thing I do remember with our girls is that it was really important to move them through their emotions. It's a delicate balance between validating and dealing with their emotions and indulging them. OK, indulging sounds really bad. I just mean that I had to learn to not just let them wallow in their feelings. Sometimes they need that. Sometimes they need me to show them how it can be fixed and move towards that. Does that make sense?

Oh, and with the video/stinky pants, some playful parenting might have helped there...big "fun" attitude of "Oh, Isaac, let's go upstairs...blah, blah, blah..." DH has trouble with this, but I find it much easier to move DS through the day if he gets the idea from me that the next thing is really, really fun! ;) It wouldn't have worked with the noodle. Our girls would have needed me to get it picked up and focus them back on their noodles on their plate and assure them they could get more if they ate all the ones they had and were still hungry.

[cklewis]

I gotta get Playful Parenting back from my mom!!! :banghead

I guess I'm having a hard time being playful when I am so cumbersome too. . . .

I just wanna nap.

C

[Chris3jam]

:yes :yes :yes on the 'closure' thing. . it's a problem solved.

I think sometimes when we start with thats unkind or inaapropiate its invalidating their feelings before we get the chance to validate them. Like saying I don't care why your screaming just don't.. (though umm sometimes I do feel that way )

:yes :yes :yes

Well, since you are limited (I may not be pg, but my mobility is limited too), I would limit his 'choices'. I would have done stinky pants and bath first, without option of 'one more'. Avoid the whole situation. Distraction/playful parenting works better at that point, too. You can be focusing on what's coming up. . .watching in mommy's bed! :dance

And I cannot 'reflect' their feelings when they are in the middle of such big ones. . they can't listen. But, that's my kids. I would not have said a word, but start walking upstairs. He would have followed. With my kids, once that first big reaction is over, I would have been talking the whole time we were doing our bath and stuff.

You did fine. :tu

[MarynMunchkins]

I think you did fine. :) It's hard to parent when you're hugely pregnant. It's easier with a newborn - at least they occasionally detach. ;)

[mamaKristin]

When I was pregnant, I used my slowness and size to my advantage in being playful. My DS (who was Isaac's age roughly when his first sister arrived), really found it hilarious and distracting when I would 'chase' him. Cause I didn't go very fast at all. The sheer akwardness of late stage pregnancy really helped me be more playful. Just a thought.

[raisa]

What about animals? Someone (Deanna?) was saying the other day that she reflects by saying "that's an alligator! Can you be a kitten?" In the restaurant you could ask him "You sound as loud as a LION!" and then (more discreetly and quietly) you could make lion gestures and sounds. Pretending to be animals might help get him up the stairs too.

Also -- singing might work -- I spend a LOT of time transitioning away from the television these days since we've been sick and have it on too much. I try to make up silly words to whatever song we just turned off. Like sing "We're going to go upstairs now!" to the tune of Blues Clues and even do the little hand gestures along with it. My DS is younger but he's usually pretty impressed and distracted by this. I think it gives some continuity with the intense tv experience in bringing his focus back to Mama and the real world.

[Garnet]

ok, my kids are older.....but this one sometimes works for me. I say "I understand you are frustrated. It must be upsetting to feel this way." Or I'll subdstitue the appropraite emotion.

I even use it on my brother. I said to him the other day while he was ranting and raving that "You must be frsutrated. Its hard to feel that way when its clear you aren't at fault." about his employer not paying a medical bill he had.

[hsgbdmama]

Overall you did fine. To me stinky pants is not an option, they need to be changed and this is not negotiable, because ITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTA with you -- yuck! :crazy2 You could have "raced" him to the bathroom for his bath or get him excited about picking out bath toys or bubble bath (we have a few kinds here that ds1 picked out :O ).

Just one more thing I agree with the pp on: you need to help him move on ... acknowledge that he has big feelings, comfort him and then help him move forward, and sometimes (but not always) that means just getting up and leading the way, like in your example you could do this:

You: "Okay, Issac, time to get those stinky pants off and get you into the bathtub! Wanna race mama?"
Issac: "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!"
You: "Okay then, I guess that means that I'm gonna win this time. (Start going towards the bathroom.) :woohoo And mama needs all the encouragement she needs, since she's running with Gavin in her belly! What kind of bubble bath do you want tonight? Do you want to pick out some bath toys?"

At this point, you might get him to start following you or not, but just keep playfully engaging him and don't dwell on his previous big feelings, because then he is drawing you back to where he wants to be.

[ArmsOfLove]

Well, I don't match volume, tone or pitch, but I don't do it flat either. I try to do it :think Like I REALLY hear them and am taking them seriously. For one thing, he's 2 :giggle I mean, when ds2 was 2 he said "no" for everything and I found out half the time he meant "yes" which was why he got upset when I would change what I was offering because I thought he didn't want it :shifty So, he may have been meaning to scream YES!

He may have been resisting the idea that his feelings were 'big' because to him they just were.
He may have been responding ot the fact that you weren't getting him the noodle :P
He may also have not wanted any attention drawn to him while he was having his feelings. This was dd.

[cklewis]

Ooooo -- you're giving me tons to study on. :scratch <taking notes> I'm going to try this stuff -- especially the playful stuff. I need that. I'm a little slow and tired. The chasing makes me :giggle .

I can see all this as possible:

he may have been meaning to scream YES!

He may have been resisting the idea that his feelings were 'big' because to him they just were.
He may have been responding ot the fact that you weren't getting him the noodle :P
He may also have not wanted any attention drawn to him while he was having his feelings. This was dd.


Especially the last one. . . .

Off to re-read and study some more.

C

[cklewis]

:cookie :cookie :cookie :cookie :cookie :cookie :cookie :cookie :cookie :cookie :cookie :cookie :cookie

:grin

I baked you all some cookies to thank you for all your help. I did all varieties of what you have suggested last night. The playful stuff worked like a charm -- especially the pretending stuff. Mommy being a giraffe was a scream!! I did better at explaining last night with some results ("Your red jammies are dirty. We have to wear blue."). And showing him my own feelings (which have been fairly big themselves) seemed to help too. That's when he goes into "Mommy, okay?" and "Need bandaid?" :heart

I even tried some of what you all said on the dog (Sugar). :giggle What I realized is that you're giving me strategies to "make it happen" when I'm having trouble with finding the physical and mental resources to do so. And that's just a wonderful thing. THANK YOU!!

It's all, all, all, all transitions right now that bug him. Except the transition INTO dinner. :giggle But the idea of making a terrific, dramatic distraction going into a change helped a lot. Sometimes that's just asking Daddy to do the transition. Sometimes it was going on the "airplane" into the house. At one point (I just have to share this) I was building up for a transition with, "You know what?" and he responded with, "I'm a precious peanut." :heart "Yes, darlin'. You ARE a precious peanut. . . . Is Sugar a precious peanut?" He said, "Yeeeees." "Is Mommy a precious peanut?" He said, "Yeeeeeeees." I said, "Is Daddy a precious peanut?" He said, "Noooooo. . . . he's cottage cheese."

:laughtears Anyway, we had a much better evening last night, and I think I'm going to bookmark this thread to read every evening while making dinner. :ty

C

[hsgbdmama]

:grouphug Glad to hear that things went better last night! :tu

[lumpofclay]

:laughtears :heart It sounds like you have one adorable little boy there...I mean, one precious peanut! :heart

[ArmsOfLove]

At one point (I just have to share this) I was building up for a transition with, "You know what?" and he responded with, "I'm a precious peanut." "Yes, darlin'. You ARE a precious peanut. . . . Is Sugar a precious peanut?" He said, "Yeeeees." "Is Mommy a precious peanut?" He said, "Yeeeeeeees." I said, "Is Daddy a precious peanut?" He said, "Noooooo. . . . he's cottage cheese."

:laughtears :laughtears :laughtears That is hysterical! Dh and I are cracking up! He said it sounds like something Aidan would say and I agree :grin

[cklewis]

BTW, tonight I was a clothes-eating alligator before bathtime. :giggle Worked like a charm. We both had fun!!

C

[UltraMother]

At one point (I just have to share this) I was building up for a transition with, "You know what?" and he responded with, "I'm a precious peanut." "Yes, darlin'. You ARE a precious peanut. . . . Is Sugar a precious peanut?" He said, "Yeeeees." "Is Mommy a precious peanut?" He said, "Yeeeeeeees." I said, "Is Daddy a precious peanut?" He said, "Noooooo. . . . he's cottage cheese."


:laughtears