what do you teach your kids to do when they get frustrated?

[heathermarie73]

I have a big problem with this because I don't handle my own frustration very well. What is a good process to work through frustration? ds is 3 and he is currently yelling or even hitting when he gets frustrated. It has gotten so bad that I find it hard to remain calm because I am frustrated. I feel like I am just teaching him wrong like he yells and yells and I start of calm and eventually might end up raising my voice. :
I think the noise level just pushes my buttons because I get the biggest headache from it all.

[Abarat]

I have the same problem and it doesn't help that 3yo DS and I are both redheads!

We still have our issues, but I find I have the most success when I take a deep breath and no matter what I'm doing I take a minute, get down on his level and sternly ask him why he's crying/whining/hitting. It at least opens up some communication because he's really bad about just shutting down communication and raging. I'll usually try to commisurate by saying "yeah, that makes me mad too, etc.". Then I'll try to distract him. "But hey, you know what makes me feel better?" then insert some activity that he usually likes to do or something special that we don't do often, etc.

If DS gets frustrated with something, like a toy, because it's not doing what he wants it to, etc. there's no fixing that. I've found no way to calm him down so he can go right back to it and fix what was wrong. We just have to switch to something completely different and sometimes the toy needs a "night night".

Lately DS has been watching some Go, Diego Go and when he gets frustrated we'll ask him what he thinks Diego would do and it seems to help. "Do you think Diego would be whining like that? No? What do you think he'd do about wanting to go outside when it's too hot?" Etc.

I feel for you and hope you find something that will work. Kiddos sure do try our creativity, don't they?

[dimibella]

I get down on their level, try to calmly tell them "breathe, breathe, breathe" ask them how I can help and give them a big hug, hold them. Also again like the pp, DD likes Ni Hao Kai Lan (I probably butchered that) and there's a little song in the show about calming down and I use that sometimes too. Now of course that's all assuming that I am in a good place myself.

[St. Margaret]

We've found a lot of success by using emotion coaching from "How to Raise an Emotionally Intelligent Child" by John Gottman. He talks about how kids just don't know how to get back from that angry place, to get calm. So we worked with DD, coaching her to "get calm" by taking breathes, mostly, and showing her what she could do-- clap her hands really hard, hit a pillow, even shout if it was going to be shouting versus throwing/hitting toys and people. Sometimes we shake our hands in the air very lightly. I know for me, swearing and shouting and even hitting pillows SEEM like they will help me vent the frustration, but they don't. So I'm trying to work with DD to use different methods.

[_betsy_]

A lot of the suggestions like yelling it out, or hitting a pillow or clapping or jumping or whatever just rev up my high needs/spirited DD1.

I've started asking her to take deep breathes and modeling it for her. It really does seem to help.

[ShadowMom]

Originally Posted by St. Margaret

We've found a lot of success by using emotion coaching from "How to Raise an Emotionally Intelligent Child" by John Gottman. He talks about how kids just don't know how to get back from that angry place, to get calm. So we worked with DD, coaching her to "get calm" by taking breathes, mostly, and showing her what she could do-- clap her hands really hard, hit a pillow, even shout if it was going to be shouting versus throwing/hitting toys and people. Sometimes we shake our hands in the air very lightly. I know for me, swearing and shouting and even hitting pillows SEEM like they will help me vent the frustration, but they don't. So I'm trying to work with DD to use different methods.

I have this book on the way! Glad to see positive comments about it. We definitely need to work on this (both DS and I could use some help expressing ourselves when frustrated).

[One_Girl]

I try to point out the feelings I am seeing and ask dd if there is anything she needs me to do when dd seems to be nearing the point of to much frustration. I also used to model stomping around and saying "I am so frustrated I need a break" and then sitting down to take a break and breath.

[ivymae]

I struggle with this myself, and there is nothing like hearing my three your old yell at her little sister to "Just HUSH already! GAH!" to realize that I really need to learn a better coping skill. Like the others, I have found that sitting and taking deep breaths with her seems to help the most. With my older daughter, she wants to be held and touched while we calm down, but the one year old hates being held when she is mad, so sometimes she just runs in circles screaming while I get recentered.

EFT is another idea, and they talk a lot about holding someone in your head - so not physically touching them, but imagining what emotions you wnt them to experience and then sending that out to them. It sounds hokey, and maybe it's more for ME then her, but after a few minutes of sitting on the floor, sending her calm and happy vibes, we both tend to be in a better place.

[Amberenergy]

The breathing thing worked well for us, in through the nose out through the mouth, when they focus on their breath things naturally calm down. Also I've told my kids their feelings are always ok, they can feel whatever they want, just not to hit, hurt or say mean things to another person when they are having those feelings...owning their own feelings is an important thing to me to teach them.