Aiden: A Strange Combination of Genes
My two-year-old son, Aiden, goes into hysterics almost every time we get into the car, because the seat belt makes his shirt bunch up. I try my best to straighten it, but I can never get it just right.
Nature selected both my Overly-Sensitive-To-Stimuli Gene, and my Anal/Obsessive Gene, and passed them, magnified, to my son. These tendencies like to manifest themselves when I take off Aiden’s shoes but not his socks, when his pants are too long, when he has to wear a jacket, when I want to cover him in bed with a blanket, and when I need to put him in the car.
This is bad, considering we do these things everyday.
Fortunately, despite his proclivity toward vehicular hysterics, Aiden is actually an unusually calm soul, inclined toward observation and thought.
I have found the following method to work very well when he has these oubreaks:
#1 A one-word yell, one notch louder than Aiden’s screaming, such as “HEY!” This has the effect of momentarily stunning him into short-term amnesia. While I have him staring at me, I proceed to the next step . . .
#2 Instruct him to take a deep breath. I breathe with him, remembering that his deep breaths are twice as short as my own. Aiden picked up on the deep-breathing technique while watching me do yoga. He’s been doing it for a year now, so he has that advantage. He is now in a calm state, ready for guidance.
#3 Empathize.
“I know your shirt isn’t straight, honey.”
“Not straight.”
“You don’t like it.”
“Don’t like it, Mama.”
“But it’s not hurting you.”
“Not hurting.”
“You don’t like it, but you will be okay.”
“Okay.”
Somehow, this works. I don’t recommend it to other parents. It probably wouldn’t fly. That is, unless your child has the same strange combination of genes that mine has.
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January 9th, 2006 @ 10:21 pm
Okay, that is the most Jedi-like parenting technique ever.
We’ve got the kids in orff classes, and whenever we have a meltdown brewing, we do a simple chant with them, that involves following a sequence of instructions with their hands.
Open them, shut them, open them, shut them
give a little clap.
Open them, shut them, open them, shut them
put them in your lap.
Creep them, creep them right up to your chin.
Open up your little mouth but do not let them in.
Falling falling almost to the ground
Quickly pick them up again
And turn the round and round.
Faster faster faster faster
Slower slower slower slower
clap.
My kids will stop and follow along, even if they are in full frantic spaz mode. I think it reorders their brain.
January 10th, 2006 @ 9:15 am
The previous comment rings a bell - because we listen to the Wee Sing CD at my house, and your chant is a time-tested classic included on that CD! At my house tend to sing the creeping flea song (fingerplay - creeping creeping little flea, up my leg and past my knee, to my belly on he goes, up my chin and to my nose - now he’s creeping down again to my belly past my chin down my leg and past my knee to my toes that little flea - then you grab the toes and say GOTCHA!) Our little one is 6 months old.
The main post is good solid advice! A bit simpler, and it really shouldn’t be seen as a solution only available to you and your genes! Its utilizing a technique designed for dispelling fixations in our brains. One self-help guru calls it a “Pattern Interrupt” (Tony Robbins). If you reasoned out the approach all on your own - you are quite observant!
We get hung up on something - and need to jar ourselves out of it, and quickly refocus on something less disruptive (breathing is almost always cited). Doing the technique for somebody else is a good positive way to guide them. The technique can be effective for adults with depression, also.
Being able to instill these skills in kids is HUGE!
A world with more adults who can actually control themselves? Worth our best efforts!
January 11th, 2006 @ 6:21 am
I’ll have to try these little rhymes you two posted. If it works, I could skip the yelling “Hey!” part of mine!
Yes, I am aware of Tony Robbins “Patter Interrupts.” My husband is a natural an interrupting people’s patterns with humor. What I described doing with Aiden just kind of came about, but it did occur to me after, that that was what was happening.