We've found that with aggression (verbal and physical), the most effective way to address the problem is by helping our children learn the emotional, communication, and problem-solving skills they need to handle their strong emotions and conflict with others without aggression.
For us, responding in the moment begins with active/reflective listening, and validation of the child's feelings.
Quote:
| Here is an example, the other day she came up to me and asked for something which I said No to (I forget what, maybe to watch TV). So she hit me. I remained perfectly calm during this exchange (though I'm not always able to), I said 'Please don't hit me' *hit* 'Why are you hitting me?' *hit* 'Are you trying to make me angry? *hit* and so on. |
So, here I see her hit, and you say "don't hit me" and asking her why she hit. We've learned that this bypasses the very important step of helping our chidren put their feelings into words (and important skill to learn), and also bypasses validating their feelings (also important: your feelings are real and valid, even if I don't like how you are expressing them). So we've had to learn to first listen and validate. If there is physical aggression, we'll say (firmly, but calmly) "stop" (and if needed physically prevent further aggression), then say "You're angry/frustrated/disappointed/etc.?...Because...? (or what's up?)" And we stay with this until we have an accurate understanding of what dd is feeling, and what her concern is. (Note: there is a difference between a concern and a solution, and often both children and adults put a solution on the table first. So, maybe she says she wants you to buy a water slide, and maybe that is her actual concern. But her actual concern/issue may be that she is tired, bored with shopping, feeling irritable, or any number of other things. Just like saying "I want pizza" is a solution. The concern may the child is hungry (a concern to which getting pizza is one solution), bored, saw/smelled pizza and it smells really good and the child is craving it, and so on.)
Only after we've listened, validated, and understood the child's concern do we put our concern on the table. Again, making sure it's a concern. You want cake. You saw it on the counter and it looks good, so you want some. Thing is, you haven't eaten since breakfast, and I'm concerned that if you eat cake now you'll be too full for lunch and then you'll get cranky because you haven't eaten any healthy food. When you get cranky you have a harder time getting along with everyone.
Then we can problem-solve, inviting the child to be part of the solution: I wonder if there's a way for you to have cake now, but also not get cranky because you haven't eaten healthy food since breakfast. (This was an actual situation one day in our house, and dd came up with the idea to eat half a sandwich now, then have cake. I had no concerns about that, so that is what she did. And she didn't get cranky.)
This whole process works best as a proactive approach. So we try to identify triggers for aggression and work with our child to solve these things ahead of time. So, if she freaks out in BJ's one day, and that's not typical, we get through it with this approach as best we can then try to identify what the triggers were so we can avoid a meltdown like this next time. We can go through the entire above process with our child (which really helps the child learn), or we can just troubleshoot by ourselves. Was it really the water slide? If so, we can make a plan for shopping the next time: talking about what we will and will not buy, what we can do if we see something we want but can't buy it right then, etc. If the trigger was being bored or tired, we can be proactive about that too: choosing better times of day to shop, finding ways of making shopping more fun, checking in on how tired dc is or what her mood is like before we go to make sure that it's a good time, etc. We can do the same for aggression in general: I've noticed that lately you've been hitting and calling people names a lot. What's up? And we can identify triggers, both with our child and on our own, and work to prevent aggression.
What I like about this approach is that, though it's a slow process (not an instant results kind of thing), it really helps our kids learn good skills that will in the long run really help them learn to resolve conflicts and handle their emotions well. The learning is in the process. And though when it's typed out for reading it seems like a long, wordy, unwieldy approach, once you've practiced it for awhile you find that it really isn't.
And sometimes, we only do the first step in the moment: "stop. You're angry. (listen, reflect) You're angry because____. I hear you." This alone goes a long way toward helping our kids learn ways of communicating other than hitting.
And yes, we do talk directly about hitting and name-calling, but we find that it's best to do this outside the moment. (Again, in the moment we'll say "stop," or even "I won't let you hit me," and intervene to stop/prevent it-making it clear that hitting is not something we approve of.) So later we can say "earlier, you were hitting me and calling me names. I've noticed this is happening a lot lately, what's up?" We listen, and talk about what was going on, then we can say "...I hear ya. Thing is, I don't like to be hit. No one does. Hitting hurts and isn't safe. Let's see if we can come up with ways for you to say what you're feeling and wanting besides hitting (or ways for you to have very strong feelings without hitting)." And we can talk about how other people are likely to feel when we hit them or call them names, how we value treating others with respect. We can talk about what dc could have done differently, brainstorming ideas then talking about them. We also talk about coping skills-things like taking deep breaths to relax/calm down, taking some space away from others to calm down, engaging in a calming activity, noticing how we feel physically and emotionally and choosing activities wisely (so for dd, if she's really tired and/or cranky, playing with siblings is probably not the best choice (it's hard for her to stay calm). A better choice may be to do something that helps her relax and recharge, like reading for awhile in a pleasant spot), asking for help, and so on.
Beyond that, we find that it helps to be very open about our own feelings and how we cope. It helps to use a wide variety of feelings words, and talk about what they mean-for example, how does tense feel? And how do I cope with tense? We also talk about the kids feelings a lot, making sure that we talk plenty about the positive feelings as well. Another key point is to talk about how the state of our bodies can impact our mood, and how we can manage that.
There are two very awesome books that have really helped us. One is
The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children by Ross Greene (2005 edition). This one is, imo, highly valuable both for parenting explosive (easily frustrate, chronically inflexible) kids as well as for parenting more typical kids. I find it to be extremely valuable in parenting all of my children, only one of whom is explosive. The other is
Raising A Thinking Child by Myrna Shure, which is all about helping preschoolers and young children learn the emotional, communication, perspective-taking, and problem-solving skills they need to handle frustration and resolve conflict. There are lots of activities to use outside the moment of conflict, as well as examples of helping kids put these skills into action during the heat of the moment.
