So Paige has been EXTREMELY difficult lately. My main thoughts on this have been "well Paige is seven now, so she considers herself the boss" or "Paige is 7 going on 13".
Its been loud, sulky, and full of attitude. Often followed by slamming doors and muttered insults. Its extremely hard not to engage with it, it riles me up something chronic! And she is also very intelligent. This means she is very good at arguing with us, very good at fairly clever comebacks and smart-arsed responses. And very good at realising when the adults we are trying to be suddenly stoop to her level. Therefore we are often losing our power in various situations.
So last week someone gave me a piece of advice that I have tried with limited success. Something I used to do when she was a baby/toddler/preschooler, but somehow have lost over the past couple of years, possibly due to the addition of two very demanding new presences in our family, giving me less time to reflect on the way I deal with her (them). This advice was "validate her feelings, but not her behaviour". So I have been saying, things like "gosh Paige, I can see your really disappointed about that." Which has been great. It takes the angry wind straight out of her attitude, and she suddenly becomes seven again. Ahhh bliss.
Now the problem is what to do with this child that is seven, feeling really unhappy and rebellious, though validated, but who is now not sure what to do with it. Neither am I. There are several options I have considered.
One is to then strip it down, tell her WHY she feels that way, WHY we were angry, WHY we dealt with her the way we did, and what we expect her to do now. Problem with that for me, is I don't feel its helping her to learn to deal with what's going on inside her. I'm not going to be available to analyse what's going on for her when one of her school mates calls her a doodeyhead or similar. So there all she has available to help her are the limited coping skills she already has, along the lines of stamping feet, crying, retaliating. Some of which are useful and valid skills, but as the adult which she will one day be, she needs more than that, doesn't she?
Another one, is to then say something like "well of course you feel that way, you were naughty so I yelled at you and sent you to your room!" I don't really feel that this will help much either. It's a shaming type of thing to say isn't it? Almost a SO THERE type statement, followed closely by "I told you so" and such wonderful phrases make us feel fantastic don't they? I don't want to shame her, I want her to behave herself, but not at the cost of her spirit. She has an amazing personality in there which is very feisty and at times hot-headed, in the end I feel this is a good thing, even if it does mean some colourful arguments!
So the last option I have is to guide her to deal with her feelings and help her figure out what to do about them. This takes the most effort but it is also having the best results. So the course here is to say ok, so your feeling [enter feeling here] why do you think that is? The usual response here is "I don't know" or just a plain old irritating shrug. But when she thinks it through, and with a little guidance she can normally tell me, then we can talk about what she can do about that.
Such as this morning, she felt most unhappy that the twins had gotten their birthday gifts and she wasn't allowed to play with them, so after we had a short discussion we decided that she wouldn't like the twins to play with anything she had just gotten either, and she decided to bring her toy dog and a ball out to play pretend fetch. And let the twins have first go with their new things. Go Paige. Go me.
So then there are the times when I just can't deal with it, and I end up getting mad and shouting at her, or saying something I then feel bad about. Or just sending her to her room till she "decides to behave properly" and I turn into the child feeling like stamping my foot at her. Doh.
I love Nigel Latta's words on this. At the start of his book (Before Your Kids Drive You Crazy, Read This) he talks about how when he was first a psychologist he would tell parents that all they had to do was be consistent, and they would get the child they wanted. Then after he had children, he felt dreadful about his early patronising ways of explaining to parents how easy it was. And now he says "be as consistent as possible".
Thank you Nigel Latta. I will.
xx The Ramblings of Another Mother.
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