Discipline an Emotionally Sensitive Child

[TesseractMom]

Sometimes I find it hard to reprimand my DS, age 7. Yesterday I heard him and a younger friend (neighbor boy) fighting and discovered that DS had hit the other boy. I gave him a time out in the dining room and sat down with him to talk about what had happened. I didn't yell or even get overly critical, but said something like it's not acceptable to hit other people. This led to a meltdown with DS crying that he could never forgive himself and that he should just kill himself because he would never be able to stop feeling bad for what he had done.

I managed to get him calmed down and helped him apologize to his friend, and shortly afterward they were off and playing again as if nothing had happened. What worries me most is the thought that my parenting strategy is flawed if even my slightest disapproval can send him into such a state. Do I need to give him more space to deal with emotions on his own, or is my current method of helping him talk through why he feels certain things the best way to go with an emotionally sensitive child?

I never meant to make a "federal case" of the hitting incident, but a time out is exactly what I would have done if the other boy had hit him. (And I imagine he would have given me the big brown eyes, said sorry, and been totally over it). From what my parents have told me, I was the same way as a child - I remember my mom saying she found it hard to yell at me. I always assumed she meant it was difficult because I showed remorse right away and she didn't feel a need to yell after that. Now I realize there's a bit more to it - that the yelling (or even stern talking) actually causes an emotional crisis which is hard to cope with afterward. Anyone have thoughts or stories to share on this?

[Roar]

Yes, that's all familiar. I'm curious is your child generally an anxious kid and/or a perfectionist or is it just with discipline?

Have you tried working ahead of time with him to make plans? What are the rules and why? What should be the consequence for breaking the rules? It may help if he's involved in planning that. It may also help after infractions if he has a plan - does he know how to apologize and how to hear it when his apology has been accepted? It may also help to try to have him put it into perspective, "How many times have you played with Matthew and of those times how often have you made that mistake?" and to observe Matthew's response "I noticed Matthew accepted your apology and moved on." And, to share what is typical for the age and what you remember from when you were a kid. Also, it helps to model how you handle it with grace when you make mistakes. Model giving apologies and forgiving yourself and moving on.

[RiverTam]

My six year old does this. We spend a good bit of time talking about rational reactions and irrational reactions to criticism.

Basically, he gets redirected twice. He gets one redirection for the bad behavior and he gets another redirection to the irrational reaction to the first redirection.

[TesseractMom]

Thanks, RiverTam. I'll keep that in mind.

Roar, my DS isn't overly anxious, but he used to have trouble with transitions and still gets emotional sometimes when things don't go the way he expects. We struggle some with perfectionism, too. We do work with him on fitting outcomes to offences, and that works fairly well most of the time. It may be that this incident was triggering because he so seldom hits anyone that we didn't have any consequences in place. He is really tough on himself for feeling normal human emotions (anger in this case), and I remember having that same high standard for myself as a child.

Well, okay, I probably still have high standards for myself...and maybe he gets that from me, whether by nature or nurture. When we talk over these things, I emphasize that it's okay and normal to feel what we feel - but how we act on our feelings will affect our relationships with other people. I think the neighbor boy has been pushing his buttons lately, too, which might have had something to do with it. They see each other every day and sometimes act more like brothers than friends (which I think is great, since they're both only children.)

I've decided to chalk it up as an emotional learning experience for DS (and me).

[Roar]

I also meant to say... in good news since he's harsher on himself than you are, you probably don't need to do a lot encourage him to be well behaved.

It sounds like you already doing this, but as a reminder coming from a place of assuming positive intent and acknowledging his feelings will probably help a lot. "I know you are a kid tries to follow the rules and hitting is not something you usually do, did it feel upsetting to lose your cool?" 

[Galatea]

Originally Posted by RiverTam 

My six year old does this. We spend a good bit of time talking about rational reactions and irrational reactions to criticism.

Basically, he gets redirected twice. He gets one redirection for the bad behavior and he gets another redirection to the irrational reaction to the first redirection.

This is what I would do.  Remind him that hitting is not okay, put him in timeout to cool down, and then if he started that irrationality, discuss if this is a rational reaction to his transgression.  Ds1 freaks about everything, and we have discussed a "scale of awfulness" - as in, "Is this the worst thing that could happen to you?"  He realizes it is not, and then calms down.

My other thought is that this is a clever bit of manipulation on his part to get you to not discipline him.

[whatsnextmom]

I have two takes on this from having two very different kids.

It used to drive me crazy that my DD would recoil like a beaten child whenever I so much as looked side-ways at her. She was always a compliant child. She never had consequences as it only ever took our saying "let's not do that in the store" to alter her behavior. She wasn't a cryer or screamer... she would physically recoil, seriously, like I was going to hit her! She'd stew in misery over it for days and be afraid to talk to us. Her imagination really painted us as different people than we were. We didn't really get past it until recently (she's 14) and largely because she started testing us in passive aggressive ways to the point where we actually DID discipline her (took the door off her room, took away her electronics, actually raised out voices, ect.) Believe it or not, that sort of fixed everything. I almost think she needed to KNOW what we would do when we were really mad. Now she sees that the world isn't going to end if she screws up or defends her actions to us. She actually communicates with us as opposed to just shrinking in fear. I wish we'd done a little less "talking" to her when she was little and laid out some actual consequences that would have shown her that yes, you messed up but you'll deal with the problems it causes and move on.

I also think it can turn into a little manipulation from the child. They learn that a big reaction on their part makes adults back-off. My DS is one who has the sort of reactions that you described and it would always end with me reassuring him that he's not so bad. I can't remember what made me wonder but at one point, I decided to stop doing that. When he started screaming about how awful he felt I would say something like "yep, that's how good people feel when they've hurt someone else." I would leave the room and not get involved in his reaction. I'd just tell him we'd talk and figure out how to deal with the issue when he was calm. It actually didn't take long for him to stop reacting like that all together. Don't get me wrong, he is still upset when he gets in trouble for something but it's not the over-dramatic "I'm the worst person in the world" stuff.

So, my advice. Don't get too involved in the meltdowns. Tell him you dissaprove of some action of his calmly. Let him have his reaction on his own without turning into the comforter. When he's calm, figure out what the consequence is. Obviously, there doesn't always have to be a consequence other than the natural one but if something comes up a lot, it might be good to do "something" just so he sees that it's not fun to get in trouble but it is something you just learn from and move on.

[Roar]

I agree especially with a teenager you don't have to get overly involved with it and that some parents can get in the habit of talking everything to death. If the reassurance is something you are doing all the time obviously it isn't working. It really depends on the kid. There really was zero manipulation from our child. Misbehavior was incredibly rare and he was holding himself to a totally unrealistic standard. We didn't get harsher and it did resolve itself as he got older.