Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:01 Welcome to the Hand-in-Hand Parent Club podcast. I'm Emily Murray, a hand-in-hand instructor and a mom of two.
Speaker 0 00:00:06 I'm Kathy Gordon, a single adoptive mom of a now young adult son, a hand-in-hand instructor, and we are both moderators of hand-in-hand, awesome membership program, the parent club.
Speaker 1 00:00:17 Every week we'll be answering a parenting question. You'll hear about hand-in-hand, parenting's powerful respectful parenting tools. We'll share how they help you work with your child's feelings, especially when their behavior gets harder confusing.
Speaker 0 00:00:29 You can feel good about using these tools. They've brought warmth and connection to our own families and to many thousands of families around the world who are using the hand-in-hand approach.
Speaker 1 00:00:39 That's why hand in hand and the parent club exist. We're here to support you and your family so you have more good, sweet, fun times together. Hello all. Welcome, welcome back. Um, today we're talking about a question from one of our listeners. They wrote in feeling a little shocked that their child had started hitting other children. They were feeling particularly surprised because it's not something they model in their home. Um, it's not something their child was really exposed to in any of the settings where they go. So they're, they're really struggling with where is this coming from? How is this aggression bubbling up?
Speaker 0 00:01:21 So the first thing we want you to know is that you're not doing anything wrong. Your child is not a bad kid because they're hitting. It's important to know that aggression is really a symptom. When the emotional system gets triggered into a reaction fight is one of the options in the fight, flight freeze protection plan. You know, that's our alarm system, that's our survival mechanism. And we do this without thought. It's a reaction. It's not something that you're doing wrong, and it's definitely not something that they're doing wrong or that they learned from another kid and they're not bad and they're not destined for a life of fighting. You know, those are all the fears. That's kind of like where our head goes, like right down that, that, that path of future tripping. So think about the context of the moment and the feelings of fear that drive them to lash out at hand in hand. We use all five tools to work on what's causing the emotional system to react in this way.
Speaker 1 00:02:29 I have an analogy that I like to use when I think about aggression. Um, if we think about our emotional system, like a big search engine that's built to protect us and alert us if there's an situ unsafe situation that requires us to activate that protective plan of fight, flight, or freeze or fawn, um, this current experience that is triggering this aggressive reaction. It's like that experience has typed in a search keyword into their internal database and what comes up for them triggers them to think, ah, I'm, I'm unsafe. I have to react here.
Speaker 0 00:03:10 Yep. Danger, danger, danger. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:03:12 So when my son was in his second year of preschool, we went from two mornings a week to five mornings a week plus daycare in the afternoon, and he started throwing things and whirling around the yard. Often he would pick up like a broom or a stick, you know, particularly when it came time, when it got time to close to that transition time of moving from preschool to daycare. Was he a bad kid? No, not at all. It was just a lot of separation from me and a lot of transitions. And his limbic system was scared. My son was adopted and he had a really rough time coming into this world. So the current situation going from, you know, just being away from me two mornings a week, to all of a sudden now he's away from me, you know, all day long and like he gets to see me, but then I'd leave him again. That current situation activated the hurts from the past. His emotional system wasn't rational or logical. It was signaling help, help, help. I don't feel safe. And the current situation was amplifying the past.
Speaker 1 00:04:30 Yes, exactly. It's like that separation experience is the search word and his emotional database. And that database brought up that whole big past experience on top of separation is just a normally tricky time anyway, just the experience of transitions and separation can just kick up resistance in any given child on any given day, but that the, the amplification of those old experiences on top of that create that extra large reaction. So how to respond, like understanding it is one thing, but we still have to manage our child whirling around the play yard with a broom that can hurt other people. So, um, we have a, we have a couple of options. Um, first one is just set a warm limit. And by warm limit we don't mean yelling across the play yard. Put the stick down please. Oops. Well, you know, we're, we're not talking about verbal limits. We're saying,
Speaker 0 00:05:33 Nice, be careful, be nice,
Speaker 1 00:05:35 Be careful. Yeah. Like that's, they're not hearing that. Um, so we move in close and actually stop the behavior. So we might put our hand on the stick. We might, um, block our, or put our body, um, in a place where we can kind of catch the movement and we say something simple like, I can't let you swing that sweetie. Um, what we wanna do is speak the language of their emotional system, which is not words, it's touch, it's sensing, its closeness, its connection. Um, and we, once we set that limit, once we move in close, they can feel our connection. We stop the behavior. We wait for the feelings to erupt from that limit. Um, we don't interrupt that process with lessons or corrections in that moment. Because again, when they are in that fight flight, freeze space, they can't process words. They can't understand language very well.
Speaker 1 00:06:31 They certainly are not thinking well. So we save any teaching or lessons. Um, if, if we feel like they're needed for another time when they're not in that hot moment. And when we listen to the feelings, it's like this hard protective crust over whatever fear or grief or, um, overwhelm that's underneath it can dissolve because they have our attention. Um, they have the limit as an excuse to let those things out. Um, a great example of how to think about this is, um, our emotional system, like other systems of our body, um, has natural reactive patterns to get rid of things that we don't need inside us at that moment. So if, if our digestive system has something in it that it doesn't really want in there, it's not helpful. The healing mechanism for the digestive system is vomiting, fun times for all. So when our child is in an illness moment and they're vomiting, we don't get upset with them.
Speaker 1 00:07:39 I mean, <laugh>, we might be overwhelmed or annoyed or, you know, it's, it's tough dealing with bodily fluids coming out of their body, but we're not mad at them. We're just kind of like, oh gosh, this is gross. Um, and the same way of thinking can be applied to aggression. Like, ugh, this is a frustrating moment. I didn't really wanna deal with all this. But here they are kind of vomiting out, um, the tension, the fear, the overwhelm that's in their limbic system, their emotional system. Um, another way to think of this is, uh, I like to, um, when I'm thinking about how I'm responding, I like to think of my child as like an animal. A little tiny sweet animal with its foot caught in a trap and they're attacking at me because they feel like they're fighting for their life. Even though I'm trying to help, I have to go in kind of quietly, carefully, closely. I might put my hand on the little animal's body to release the trap so it can go on and, uh, move on with its day and hopefully heal. But it, I'm, I'm responding to my child in the same way, kind of directly but calmly so I can help them get out of that trap.
Speaker 0 00:08:59 One of our parent cub community members, I remember her talking about how, you know, you, you see this, um, animal who's gnashing, you know, you see <laugh>. You know, we don't, we don't mean to imply that your children are animals, but using this analogy, like if you're looking at an animal who's like, you know, growling and gnashing their teeth and trying to get at you, and then you just come around to the side and just shift your perspective a little bit, you see, oh, they're caught in a trap. And that's actually what fear does to a, a, a human brain. Like, it like catches the whole, um, uh, limbic system, uh, our alarm center. It's like, it just catches it in, in a trap and, and causes this reaction of, of often fight, uh, flight or freeze. But, but today we're, you know, we're just talking about that fight reaction and this reaction can get really big.
Speaker 0 00:09:57 Um, and especially as they're kind of focusing their fear on us. Uh, so I, I actually did a webinar for the parent club community on how to stay listened to aggression while keeping everyone else safe. Because as you are bringing the limit in order to stop the hurting, um, our primary job then becomes to be the safety manager to keep everyone safe, to stop the hurting and to keep everyone safe. And, um, so we, you know, we have lots of ideas for how to do that. The other option, cuz Emily had said there was two options. The first is to bring that warm physical limit. No, I can't let you do that. The other option is to offer playful limits, to meet the aggression with affection. And this can seem completely counterintuitive, particularly because of how our society views aggression. That this person is someone to be feared, someone to be ostracized.
Speaker 0 00:10:59 Um, some, you know, so this can seem counterintuitive, but remember that it, when we are bringing a playful limit with a, with affection, we're really reaching underneath the behavior to our good, good, scared child that's underneath there. And, um, this can look like, you know, a thousand kisses, a vigorous snuggle. And we're, we are reaching in, we're we're helping to stop the aggression. Um, and we're countering the fear. It, it shows them that we're, that they're safe and they're loved. And when we get laughter going, then that's the release of that fear. And, you know, Patty likes to say that with a, an aggressive child is a scared child. And so when we come in warmly with, oh, you know, uh, little ones who hit, they get a thousand kisses. Um, we're we're saying, you know, I love all of you. Uh, I accept all of you. I see all of you bring it on. I'm here for you. And
Speaker 1 00:12:07 A little bit of that, like, I'm not, I'm not worried like in the same way, like same, ugh, vomiting happens. I'll clean it up. Let's, you know, get you cleaned up. We're not worried. We, we are, we're confidently, um, supporting them through that tough moment.
Speaker 0 00:12:22 Yeah. And I think it's important to recognize that we as parents and caregivers, we can't pre prevent all the hurts from happening. Experiencing life means that we're, that our children are gonna experience challenges and scary moments, grief, separations, even trauma. Our emotional systems are perfectly equipped to manage these things as long as we have connection and listening. So, for example, to help my son, I made sure to pour in connection before the transitions. We did wrestling before school. I would arrive at the preschool pickup early so we could connect and play before that transition to daycare. And I stay listened on the days that he didn't wanna go to daycare. And, you know, I slowed things down. I slowed those transitions down and I was available to, um, listen to the feelings so that they didn't grab hold of him in that way. And all of this helped heal some of the early hurts, which made him more resilient in the current situation.
Speaker 1 00:13:30 Yeah, this is like, this is an eventual rewiring process. Um, and they can even initiate using these tools themselves once they get a sense of how this works and how laughter does really feel good in response to that feeling bubbling underneath of like, oh, I need to hit something. Or, oh, I I, and I mean, they aren't even thinking it's just simply reacting. Um, but one of my most memorable moments of really seeing this pattern and this template take shape of, oh my, my kid is really understanding this, um, was with my younger child. They were having just this really prickly, ornery kind of day. So reactive to everything. Every little thing was, was like I was getting snarled at. And she was snarling at this, snarling at that. And, um, I was nearly pulled into reacting back because, you know, I'm human and it was getting frustrated.
Speaker 1 00:14:32 I was getting frustrated. Um, but as I was like going toward my own reaction, back at her reaction, she jumped in front of me and yelled, <inaudible> Wrestling now. And thankfully I, you know, I had the resources in that second that, you know, I don't always, cuz again, I'm human, but I could catch it. I caught it. And so we did it. We did 10 minutes of wrestling and um, they, they went through those prickly feelings. They growled, they roared, they brought out their claws during the wrestling and then like, it really was like 10 minutes, um, maybe even less cuz I actually set a timer cuz I can only wrestle for so long <laugh>. But then, you know, she was able to go right back to playing right afterward. It was so magical.
Speaker 0 00:15:22 So we've said a lot today about aggression. We hope that we have given you, um, some, a good understanding of the fear that's driving the aggression and that, um, we do wanna stop it. We do wanna come in, we do wanna bring a limit and we wanna listen to the feelings. So our one small thing this week, and seriously with aggression, it doesn't, it can often, it doesn't feel like a small thing
Speaker 1 00:15:53 <laugh> true. We're gonna,
Speaker 0 00:15:54 We're gonna suggest that you notice when times are hard and even before they lash out that you, you know, sort of be a detective about, like, I like that whole situation with my son in preschool. You know, I started, uh, uh, proactively preempting the transitions coming in and reaching for him before the transitions. So notice when times are hard and reach for your child with a vigorous snuggle or a thousand kisses. And we have a whole list of these kinds of affection games, connecting games in our bonus article in the show notes. So thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye. Thank
Speaker 1 00:16:39 You so much for tuning in to the Hand In Hand Parent Club podcast. Please liken, subscribe to hear more and to connect with us between these episodes. Come on over to hand in hand parenting.org to join the parent club where you can get coaching classes and live support.
Speaker 0 00:16:52 Come join our vibrant community of parents in the parent club who are committed to getting the support they need to be the parents they wanna become. We'd be honored to support you too. This podcast and the Parent Club are part of Hand-in-Hand Parenting, a nonprofit organization that supports parents all over the world. We are here for you when parenting gets hard.
