With wonder
We’re always exploring the world, even in times of rupture and discipline. Let’s explore it with our kids, even in the most difficult times.
Our Framework
I wonder if you’re feeling (X) and have a need for (Y and Z).
We wonder if you’re feeling confused and overwhelmed and if you have a need for clarity, understanding, and well-being.
When there’s a point of rupture, you, as a responsible parent or caregiver, are in a place to help your child understand the impact of their behavior and redirect their actions. How the adults in your life showed up when you were young might impact how your body reacts when you’re now put in a similar position. We wonder if you may feel stressed. Anxious. Overwhelmed. Angry. Sad. Scared. We wonder if you have a need for clarity. Support and community. Understanding how to navigate this difficult time. Respect. Greater peace, harmony, and ease in your relationship with your child. For your child’s well-being (and your well-being, too). Assurance that how you’re engaging with your child is affirming and not causing harm.
Even in the difficult times (and perhaps especially in the difficult times), we can practice feeling grounded and connected in ourselves and open and curious to what our children are experiencing. We can practice repair with ourselves and our children.
First, let’s practice getting more grounded and centered in ourselves.
Take a deep breath in…and a deep breath out.
Take a deep breath in…and a deep breath out.
Inhale and smell the flowers…exhale and blow out the candles.
(Nice work, mama, papa, auntie, uncle, or grandparent!)
As you’re breathing deeply and may be more aware of being in your body, we wonder if you’d also consider practicing being curious about your feelings and needs. Might you take a few minutes to check out the feelings and needs pages to get a sense of what might be feeling alive in you at this moment?
Next, let’s try to bring a sense of curiosity to what our child just did.
Hey, fabulous parent. Think you might be able to bring a sense of wonder and curiosity to why your child said or did something that caused a rupture?
If you were able to practice bringing a sense of wonder to your own feelings and needs, now could be a good time to bring a similar sense of wonder to your child’s feelings and needs. Is it possible they were feeling angry and had a need to be understood? Perhaps they felt lonely and had an unmet need for connection? Maybe they felt afraid and had a need for safety?
If you can help your child name their feeling and needs, you can help them understand their experience more fully and offer them tools to respond in a better way in the future.
Let’s help our child think about how they can offer repair.
Hopefully, at this point, your child just had an experience of feeling understood by you in this difficult time of rupture. And an understanding that what they did caused harm or a rupture. Now we get to practice offering repair.
To the extent that you can, it may be helpful for your child to work with you to think through what they could offer for repair that would be appropriate and potentially well-received by the person who was harmed or on the receiving end of the rupture. It may also be helpful to think about the timing of offering repair–some ruptures can be addressed quickly, but it may be appropriate to wait to offer repair.
Love that child. (And yourself.)
Your child (and you!) just did something brave. And important. And transformative. Let’s be real: there are many adults who struggle to do what you and your child just did.
You love your child. They know this through your words and actions. And (even if they cringe when you say it) now might be a great time to let your child know that you love them. You might also want to consider acknowledging and naming what you appreciate about how they showed up when they practiced offering repair.
What’s in a word?
I feel or I am?
“I wonder if you’re feeling angry.”
“I get the sense you might be feeling sad. Did something happen that you feel sad about?”
“In this moment, I’m feeling overwhelmed with cleaning up this messy kitchen.”
Having (and naming and acknowledging) feelings helps our brains understand the world around us and how we fit into that world in any given moment. And feelings can be momentary experiences, responding to various shifts and turns throughout the normal course of a day. But often it’s common to hear someone say, “I am mad” or ask, “Are you mad?” Either is a shortcut statement that jumps over the word “feeling”…and that seven-letter word can hold a powerful shift in how you experience that moment.
Maybe take a moment and give it a try. Sit with this statement: I am angry. How does that feel in your body? What do you notice? How about this statement: I feel angry. How does that feel in your body? Do you notice any difference, even if it’s a small one? Often, people experience “I am” statements as feeling as big or bigger than they are. It might be difficult to wrap your arms around the feeling. But when people experience “I feel” statements, often they feel bigger than the feeling. It’s like the feeling is part of them, but not all of them.
The human brain goes through a lot of developmental stages during childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. For much of this time, our children experience any given moment as if it will be what they experience forever. The brain holds whatever feeling is being experienced now as the feeling they’ll always experience. If we can practice using “I feel/you feel” language with our children, we can help show up with what they’re experiencing in the here and now, while providing needed nuance and context that this experience will shift in the future.
Let’s Do This Thing Together
Creative Expression: Connected Communication
Hey there, wonderful parent and person in your own right.
Let’s practice communicating in a way that enhances connection.
We invite you to try out the following (or whatever part(s) resonate with you):
- Do you have any pictures of yourself as a child around? Now might be a good time to look at a few. This creative expression exercise focuses on some of the times when you were a child and you felt misunderstood by your parents or weren’t allowed to express yourself. Sometimes, when our children behave in a way that we weren’t allowed to when we were young–and the adults in our lives used shame, anger, or isolation to try to change our behavior–we can still feel the rupture we experienced as a child when our children behave in a similar way. This might feel like an internal grinding. And we might feel constricted or overwhelmed in how to respond to our kids.
- Spend about 10 minutes thinking about your child’s behavior that bothers you the most. What do you feel when your child behaves this way? Perhaps write your feelings down or draw them.
- Consider your unmet needs when your child behaves this way. When your child behaves this way, what needs do you have that aren’t being met? Perhaps write your needs down or draw them.
- Is there a chance you also behaved this way when you were a child? Consider what you might have felt and needed them. Perhaps write about or draw what you experienced as a child.
- Love young you the way you deserved when you were a child. If you haven’t already checked them out, you may want to try the creative expression exercises associated with feelings when there’s a rupture and needs. If you’ve already done these, perhaps find what you created and remember that adult you can give young you the love you deserved then–and still deserve now.
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