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Welcome to familywisdom.com, a website dedicated to informing and inspiring couples and families. Each week you will find a new article, story or essay about parenting, marriage or life. Suggestions for articles and questions to Ellen Terich are welcome. You can contact her at e.terich1@verizon.net |
LESSON FROM SEAN: OVERWHELMED BY EMOTIONS 2005-10-16 Sean is having a hard time these days. For one thing, he's four and a half. That's not an easy age to be. It's a time of what psychologists call "disequilibrium." For another thing, his mom is under doctor's orders to rest because she started having premature labor. She can't do all the things she used to do with him, including work at his preschool, take him on long walks, and go to the park. She has to take medicine to relax the uterus and the first two days she took it, she experienced the common side effect of shaking. It got so bad she had to call her husband and have him come home from work. This scared Sean who still vividly remembers those days and calls her medicine her "shaky medicine." So our little Sean is all out of sorts emotionally. He has a short fuse, yells at his mother, tries to tell her what to do, takes things away from his sister, won't eat some meals, turns his back on everyone at the table, and insists on having his own way. He has even started calling his mother "bad" when she takes something away from him or puts him in his room for a time out. I told my daughter that I believed Sean was trying to control a world that to him seemed very out of control. He is aware that things are not right and he is afraid, but he is unable to express his feelings in a way that will elicit reassurance for him and help him feel more at ease. In fact, until a few days ago, he refused to talk about any feelings other than anger. It's bad enough to feel afraid, worse still to admit those fears. It's better to simply pretend the fear doesn't exist and try to control your world through your actions, which in Sean's case include bullying and verbal outbursts. A few days ago, Sean had a particularly angry outburst which even scared his sister. Eventually, his mother was able to calm him down and ask him if he was worried about something. He said he was worried that his mother would get hurt when the baby came out. (A few weeks ago he had asked his mother how the baby comes out and she had tried to explain it honestly, but in the way a four year old might understand.) He went on to say he wanted the baby out right now. In other words, he wants the birth of his little sister or brother over with so he doesn't have to worry about it anymore. His mother spent more time explaining to him both that the baby needed a little more time in mommy's tummy and that mommy wouldn't get hurt when the baby came out. We'll see if Sean's behavior calms down now that he has been able to express his feelings. It's possible he will still have bad days because one conversation usually isn't enough to relieve a child's worries. It's likely Sean's mom will have to talk to him many more times and possibly even take him to the doctor with her so the doctor can reassure him. In the meantime, she has created a paper chain to have Sean tear off one link a day in the countdown to the baby's due date, in much the same way children count the days until Christmas. Sean's outburst and revelation about his worries remind us that children's misbehavior frequently is a manifestation of their painful feelings. Sadness, hurt, jealousy and fear can often overwhelm a youngster, especially one like Sean who is not good at expressing what he feels. Even children who have the capability of expressing their feelings may act them out if they don't have the opportunity to express them or if the situation that led to them isn't corrected. When Sean's mother was four years old she too had some problems with strong feelings. She had two younger brothers who demanded a lot of attention and she would cry or whine at times, misbehave at others when she was feeling left out. Although I didn't yet have any degrees in psychology, I sensed as her mother that she needed some time alone with me, time away from her two year old and newborn brothers. Her crying, whining, and frequent dawdling (which drove me crazy) were all symptoms that she felt neglected. So about once a month we would get dressed up and go to a tea room in a local department store where we would have lunch and just talk, something she loved to do. That special attention would fill a need in her that would last a few weeks and then her behavior would begin to change and we would do it again. Eventually her brothers got older and didn't demand so much attention and the need for special lunches was not as great. But for a while, that special time we had together, uninterrupted by the constant demands of little brothers, did the trick in helping her cope with the realities of her world. Before applying a punishment to a misbehaving child, the wise parent stops to analyze the situation in order to discern whether or not the child was acting out some painful feelings. If unmanageable feelings are behind the behavior, it isn't usually helpful to punish a child. Sometimes punishment can even make things worse. The best approach when this is the case is for a parent to play amateur detective and try to figure out what is going on. Sometimes a verbal child will be able to express his feelings with a little prompting from a parent; other times a parent may simply have to make a good guess. Either way, parents need to be alert to symptoms of overwhelming feelings in children and address not only the behavior, but the feelings and the events that led to them. Only when the behavior is understood will a parent be able to effectively deal with it. Only when the parent addresses the real issue will the child be able to feel secure and safe from the overwhelming emotions that originally prompted what we call "misbehavior." |