Kids, Parents, and Power Struggles

by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka

  —A parent

  When my daughter was fifteen, she informed my husband and me that she and her friends were renting a hotel party room instead of going to the homecoming dance. Our response was immediate. Kurcinka kids did not rent hotel rooms. Acknowledging that we understood she wanted to be with her friends, we offered to host a party at our home, where it could be supervised. She didn’t like our response. Grousing in disappointment, she walked out of the room and called her cousin Christine, ten years her senior. “My parents are being so old-fashioned,” I heard her complain, and then she proceeded to explain that we wouldn’t let her rent the hotel room. Christine replied, “Your parents are right. You’re an athlete; you don’t want to put yourself in a vulnerable position.” If I’d paid my niece to be our “backup” she couldn’t have done a better job. Her response was all we needed. My daughter knew her case was shot. She got up, put on her running shoes, and took off for a three-mile run. Over the next three days she ultimately decided that she’d rather go out of town that weekend than host a party. So together we planned a family trip to northern Minnesota.

  When I shared this story in class, I didn’t expect the stunned silence that fell. “Why didn’t she start screaming or swearing at you?” Diane asked incredulously. And it was Peter who said, “I can’t believe she didn’t stomp off or refuse to talk with you.”

  What I realized is that over the years, my daughter had learned our family’s standards—not perfectly, mind you; she is human—but pretty darned well. Those standards had helped her to keep her cool and continue to work with us.

  But it’s often difficult to imagine how you can teach your child those skills when his screams drown out your words or his blows are bruising your arm. How do you soothe and calm him when he’s kicking and flailing at you? What do you do when he swears at you? In the heat of the moment you have to help your child to stop reacting and instead to learn to choose a more respectful and suitable way to express his strong feelings. You are his teacher, his emotion coach. The task can seem overwhelming unless you break the skills down into small steps that can be accomplished more easily.

  The Steps

  I can show you those steps, but as I do, I want you to know that teaching your child to recognize what she is feeling, stop impulsive reactions, and choose more respectful and suitable responses is like putting together a variety show. The pieces have to be learned separately before they’re put together, and even then they have to be practiced over and over. Let me tell you about Judy Sagen so you can understand what I mean.

  Judy Sagen’s official title is choir director, but I see her as an emotion coach for other people’s kids. Every year she pulls together a crowd-pleasing, foot-stomping variety show with students from my local high school. This is no small feat. More than two hundred kids are involved. Some of them have had years of voice and dance lessons, but many others have never trained or performed before. They’re all amateurs. Yet year after year they produce a show that meets professional standards.

  I asked her once what her secret was. “The show is all broken down into tiny steps,” she explained. “First we learn the notes. Sometimes I bring in a recording so they can hear the song. Then I teach them style. I demonstrate the difference between a quick, sharp staccato and a slow, smooth legato. We talk about those differences, and I demonstrate the impact of each.”

  Notes and style are practiced until the words are memorized. It’s only when the song has become second nature that the choreography begins. “You can’t think about words when you’re dancing,” Judy says. “It has to come naturally.”

  So for a while they forget about the vocals and focus on the footwork. Then they go back, polish up the vocals, and put the two together. But they’re not done yet. Now it’s time for stage performance strategies. Using mirrors and videotapes, they review facial expressions, including when to smile and how to convey their message with their entire head and body.

  It’s only after these skills have been practiced over and over again that the orchestra joins them. But believe it or not, they’re still not finished! They still have to add the costumes, and finally practice the curtain call. “If that’s sloppy, you haven’t taken the last step,” Judy explains.

  Luckily your “variety show” is much simpler than Judy’s. You’re not working with two hundred kids. You’re working just with your own, and the steps are actually less complex. I’ll show you those steps, but bear with me since, like the variety show, each step takes time, as does assembling the final production. First we’ll work on enforcing your standards. After that I’ll show you how to identify your child’s emotions and help him monitor how intense he’s feeling. Then I’ll describe how to teach your child what actions he can take when he’s feeling frustrated, angry, irritated, jealous, disappointed, and all those other strong emotions. Ultimately, we will put all of the pieces together and you and your child will be star performers when it comes to managing those strong emotions.

  Standards Are a Beginning

  Standards form your foundation. They are your guidelines for what is acceptable and what is not acceptable behavior. Standards don’t change whether you’re two or sixty-two. They are the rules of conduct that you will keep coming back to in order to help your child make healthy choices about how to express strong feelings. Your goal as you enforce your standards is to communicate clearly to your child, “This is not acceptable behavior. You need to make a different choice.” When you understand that at this point your goal is simply to communicate your standards, it’s easier to keep your cool when your child doesn’t immediately stop. His failure to comply doesn’t mean you’ve failed. You’re just not finished yet. Right now you’re simply working on the “first notes,” an essential piece of the whole.

  Enforcing Your Standards

  Think about the last time your child erupted. What did he say or do? Did he rip up his paper when he made a mistake? Were you dodging your two-year-old’s kicks when you tried to change her pants? Did your son hit you or call you names when you asked him to pick up his room? Did your daughter bite the baby? Was a family gathering disrupted by a shrieking toddler or a preadolescent calling you the b word?

  Instead of moving into the role of the intimidator, stop to think about the standards you set for yourself. What actions or words did your child express that you’ve deemed unacceptable for yourself?

  When your child is reacting to his strong emotions, the importance of your standards is reinforced. When you have clarified your own standards and know which behaviors you will not accept, it’s much easier to step in and firmly say, “Stop! In this family, no matter how angry we are, we do not hit!” Or, “You can tell me you’re angry, but you may not swear at me. I don’t swear at you, and you can’t swear at me.” Your effectiveness increases exponentially when your words match your actions. This is why it’s so important that you not stop him from hitting by slapping his hand. If you don’t hit when you’re upset, your child not only hears you say, “Hitting is not acceptable,” he also sees that adults don’t express their anger by hitting. Before the teen years your child wants to be like you. Your clear standards help her to stop reacting and instead choose a different response.

  Consistency Is a Must

  Standards need to be upheld no matter what, which means they need to be consistently enforced. Roy Baumeister, author of Losing Control, explains, “When kids are punished severely when their parents are in a bad mood, but get away with mayhem when parents are in a good mood, we create a model for kids out of control.”

  Kids can’t make the standards their own if we are inconsistent. When your standards are enforced according to how you feel rather than what your child has done, you confuse him. He can’t predict your reaction. He never knows whether you’re going to step in calmly and hold the line, blow up, or let him off the hook. Since he doesn’t know what to expect, he goes on constant alert, which raises his intensity, making him vulnerable to tantrums. As a result, he feels help
less and ends up angry and frustrated because he has no idea where the line is or what the standards are.

  Check yourself. If you’re letting your kids push and shove one another when you’re busy or engrossed in something else, but you stop them when you have the energy or the focus to do it, you are not enforcing clear standards. If you’re telling your child not to shove, but then roughly grab her, you are confusing your child. If you don’t want your child to hit when he’s angry, you have to take his hand and stop him no matter if it’s just a little hit, or he didn’t really mean it, or he was upset or tired. Don’t ignore the behavior, stop it. When your standards are enforced every time, you make it much easier for your child to make the standards her own. If you are single parenting and Dad’s rules are different from Mom’s rules, you can tell your child there are Daddy’s rules and there are Mommy’s rules. When you are with me, you follow my rules. Then be consistent about your rules.

  Dealing with the Guilt

  When you enforce your standards, your child is never going to say thank you. Instead, he may be stunned. This is especially true if you’re the caregiver who hasn’t been saying no and suddenly you start saying stop! His initial reaction may be to scream louder.

  You hate to see your child sad and upset, and it can be embarrassing to carry a screaming child out of the shopping center. Your gut may twist with guilt while doubt fills your mind. How could you be doing the right thing when you get such a negative reaction? It’s important to realize that you are asking your child to stop his actions and consider other people. While the message may be painful to receive, it’s a very important one and essential to his future relationships.

  If you avoid enforcing standards, your child will become an unbearable tyrant. He won’t learn that he can manage his emotions whether he’s at home or in public. Without standards he is a victim of Mother Nature telling him to “fight or flee.” His strong feelings control and overwhelm him. While it may not be easy to enforce your standards, one of the most important messages you can give your child is, “I’m not afraid of your strong feelings. I will help you stop.”

  Match Your Words with Actions

  When it comes to enforcing standards, Beth Cutting, a St. Paul family educator, likes to tell the story of the picnic and the mosquito. She says, “When you’re having a picnic in Minnesota, it’s inevitable that a mosquito will try to bite you. You swat at it. It comes back. You swat at it again. It comes back again. It isn’t until you get up and go after that mosquito that you can stop it from biting you.”

  If you only use words to enforce your standards, it’s like swatting at that mosquito. It won’t work. You’re wasting your energy. Lynn Jessen, Director of Paidea Chill Development Center, says, “Words are the standards. Actions are the enforcement.”

  If you want your child to make your standards her own, you have to add actions to those words. Not harsh rough actions like spanking or jerking, but gentle firm actions that clearly express, If you can’t stop yourself, I will stop you.

  Developmentally, toddlers are at the stage of learning what they can do and how things work, which is why they put things in their mouths, dump toys and food on the floor, climb on counters, and get into cupboards. Their brains are screaming, Find out what happens; see what you can do! That’s why a two-year-old will look right at you, smile, and then do what you just asked him not to do. Words alone will never stop a two-year-old. Usually by age four, however, when your child is more verbal and knows from experience that you always follow through, he will be able to stop himself when you say, “Stop.” If your child has a language delay, it will take him longer to be able to stop with words alone.

  Shouting Isn’t Action

  Tom thoughtfully listened as I talked about the importance of matching words and actions. “In our family we don’t act,” he said. “We just yell louder.” Tom’s experience isn’t unusual. Many times when our kids don’t respond to our words, we become frustrated. Our intensity goes up, and we end up yelling louder, hoping that the power of our voice will somehow stop them. We might even believe they don’t hear us until we yell. But in reality shouting simply brings up the intensity, which hinders problem solving. The next time your child does something that needs to be stopped, say “Stop” and at the very same time move. If you aren’t willing to get up to go after your child to help him stop, he’s probably not going to stop on his own.

  Review Your Standards

  Emotion coaches don’t surprise kids with their standards. Before you enter a situation, talk with your child about the feelings he might experience and the standards you have for expressing those feelings. If you’re going into the grocery store, you could say something like, “The lights are bright and the aisles are crowded. You might feel irritated or grumpy. If you do, you can tell me and we’ll find a quiet corner to take a little break, but it is not acceptable to whine or throw a tantrum.”

  You are not “feeding” your child ideas when you help him to predict emotions he might experience. You are building his vocabulary so that he can talk to you instead of acting out, and you are teaching him your standards. You help him to honor those standards when you teach him what he can do or say.

  Teach Your Child What He Can Do

  What scared Abe’s parents the most were the temper tantrums. He could be a great kid and he often was. His mom could take him to the office with her, and people would remark about his charm and good behavior. But put Abe on a baseball field, and a different kid emerged. This one threw down his helmet and swore when he struck out. Stomping and shouting were all part of the display. His parents had told him clearly that this behavior was not acceptable. They’d taken away privileges when he acted this way, and yet the outbursts continued. Why, they wanted to know? What were they doing wrong?

  Abe’s parents were enforcing their standards, a very important step, but standards alone are not enough to help a child learn to choose a more suitable response. We can’t expect our kids just to squelch their emotions. We have to teach them what they can say or do when that intensity starts to surge through their bodies. Next time Abe is going to a game, his parents might say, “During the baseball game, you might feel frustrated or disappointed. If you do feel that way, you can take a deep breath or step around the bench to give yourself a little space, but it is not acceptable to throw down your bat or helmet.”

  Like driving a manual transmission, if you only put on the brakes, the engine will sputter and die. In order to keep things running smoothly, you must simultaneously push in the clutch and downshift.

  When it comes to kids, “downshifting” means naming the feeling you think they might be experiencing and teaching them what they can do or say—what their choices are.

  When Your Child Hits You

  If your child is hitting you, before you take hold of your child, get ahold of yourself. Then catch his hand and firmly but gently hold it. Remind yourself, This is an overload. My child is not out to get me. She is feeling overwhelmed by the emotions that are flowing through her system. This is not my failure. Then clearly and emphatically state, “You may not hit. No matter how angry you are, you may not hit.” This is not the time to say, “Please don’t hit,” or “Stop, okay?”

  Rather than trying to figure out what punishment to mete out, name the emotion you think your child might be experiencing. At this point it is a guess, but the further you move along in this book, the more likely you’ll be able to identify that “real fuel source.” Then teach your child what he can do in this situation. For example, you can say, “I know Jeff pushed you. It hurt, but you may not hit him back. You can say to Jeff, ‘Stop, I don’t like that!’ or ‘Stop, that hurts.’ Then you can come and get me, and I will help you.”

  When Your Child Throws Things

  If your child is throwing things, remove them from his hand. Then try to name the emotion. You might say, “I think you were disappointed and irritated when I said it was time to come in.” Or, “It was frustrating when I said
no, but you may not throw things when you’re angry.” Firmly let him know he may not break things or hurt others when he’s angry.

  When You’re in the Car

  It was time to go home, but three-year-old Jacob didn’t want to get in his car seat. “You have a choice,” his mother said. “You can either get in yourself, or I will put you in.” “It’s too hot,” Jacob protested. So his mother put a towel in the seat. “It’s too tight,” he complained. So she adjusted the straps. But he still wouldn’t budge. Finally she picked him up and put him in the seat. The other people in the car, including his mother, aunt, and grandmother, were held captive for the next forty-five minutes as he screamed the entire way home.

  Jacob needs to hear from his mother that screaming, kicking, and flailing in a car are a danger to all. In order to clearly enforce her standard, Jacob’s mom may have to step out of the car or tell him the car cannot start until he stops screaming. If they’re already on the road, she may have to pull off, stop the car, and clearly state the standard, “It’s not safe for me to drive when you’re screaming. I will start driving again when you’re quiet.”

  Try to name the feeling, “Leaving your friend’s house makes you sad,” or “Car seats are uncomfortable.” Then offer him words or actions he can use. “You can say, I didn’t want to leave.” Or, “You can ask for someone to sit by you, but you may not scream and kick the back of my seat.”

  You may be thinking, Stopping is just what the child wants; or, I commute every day, I can’t keep pulling off the road. But when you clearly enforce your standards, you won’t have to repeatedly stop. Your words and actions will have communicated that this is not acceptable behavior. And because you have also taught your child what he’s feeling and what he can do, he won’t need to scream. He’ll have other choices.

  If screaming in the car is a constant issue for you, you’ll need to dig deeper. There’s a feeling or need your child is experiencing that makes riding in the car very uncomfortable to him. Perhaps he suffers from motion sickness. Maybe the sights flashing by give him a headache; perhaps the sounds of the radio and traffic hurt his ears. Do your best to soothe him, remembering that he’s not trying to give you a migraine. Then take preventive actions. A headset may drown out the sounds. Medication that helps prevent motion sickness might be necessary for long car rides.