I am not nor do I pretend to be a child psychologist. Please take this information with a grain of salt. It’s not meant to be counseling nor a replacement for professional counseling if you are in a position where you may need that sort of assistance. Please seek a licensed professional if you are experiencing issues with your child that feel beyond the normal behaviors most children exhibit. These are merely learnings I’ve gathered as a parent of two young girls and tips I have applied from my education as a hypnotherapist.
What I’m about to describe next is a real life experience I had with my child. It may seem exaggerated, but it’s not. You’re sitting at a small restaurant for dinner with a young couple who double as your closest friends. While you are sharing dinner and reliving past experiences, your child reaches up for those red striped mints most restaurants offer to their patrons after they’ve completed their dinners. You’re only midway through your meal so you refuse to give your 1 year old the candy treats for fear that it will ruin her appetite. If you’re a parent, you already know.
My child refused to accept that I would not give her a piece of candy in the middle of our meal. Above and beyond the implications of giving a piece of candy to a one year old in the middle of a meal, the mints tend to be spicy which would not bode well in her mouth. In retribution for my refusal, she screamed at the top of her lungs for a good 30 minutes. It felt like hours. You could sense that people were getting very annoyed. We tried everything we could to stop or lessen her screaming. Our attempts were only met with more intense screaming. We tried to blend into the brick walls behind us but our chameleon suits decided to malfunction on us that day.
After she figured that she grabbed the attention of enough of the clientele in this small restaurant with her ear piercing, high pitched toddler voice, at least that’s what it felt like to me, she decided that leaving whatever little she ate for dinner all over the floor was the next most appropriate move in her battle with me for those spicy mints. In that moment, I leaned over to my lady and said, “Yup, we’ve become those parents.”
Fast forward 2 years later. We also find a young child who is happy and constantly offering to help with household chores; no matter how big the task. She is loving to her younger sister. She no longer pukes out of anger or frustration. Instead, she’s learned to calm herself relatively quickly. We attributed her outbursts to her “terrible twos” phase of her life. However, I firmly believe that this period could have been so much more damaging to all of us involved if I had not employed some of these techniques below.
- Empty the cup. When my child was going through her terrible twos around 14 months of age, at that time, I truly believed that she was doing it on purpose. Why else could she cause so much frustration and anger within me if it was only by accident? Thankfully, someone sat me down and explained to me that I was wrong.
I found that I had to empty my cup. EFT is Emotional Freedom Technique. It is a concept that is similar to acupuncture but does not need the expertise of a specialist to use it effectively nor the long sharp round things. By tapping on energy meridians in your head and upper body, you can reduce those feelings of anger, frustration, guilt when it comes to your child. After you’ve used EFT to desensitize yourself, you can be much more effective at approaching every frustrating situation with a calm, level head.
- Magic 30. As hypnotists, we believe that the most effective time for someone to learn something new is the 30 minutes or at most, 1 hour before someone falls asleep. Use this time to help your children grow a healthy self-esteem. Even if you feel that your child grew from a seed planted in hell (please don’t ever feel that way about your child), every night, reinforce the idea that: 1) they are loved, 2) you are proud of all the great things they have done during the day, 3) they are smart, 4) they are beautiful. As you do this every night, it helps them build a strong sense of self worth and that they are capable of doing even more amazing things. The sky is just one limit that they will exceed when you give them the tools to fly high.
- Breathing is relieving. – Research shows that having a good breathing routine that involves slow, deep breaths can help you decrease your level of stress. It’s also great to teach your children to breathe deep, relaxing breaths when they become very frustrated and angry. It took me about a year and a half to get my my daughter (who is now 3) to be able to do it properly. It wasn’t easy at first but trust me here, the extra work pays off in the end. When she becomes completely irate over little meaningless things, all I have to do is to remind her to breathe. She starts breathing deeply and calms down within 5 seconds of starting the breathing process. She could be screaming at the top of her lungs as a river of tears flows from her eyes. Once I get her started on the breathing technique, she can calm herself within 5 or 10 seconds of starting. You get the added bonus of being one of the anchors that helps her stay calm.
- Find a good match. Approach with calm and they will match you. Because you are the person in the position of authority, your child will, more often than not, follow your lead. Even before any issues arise, we find that children often emulate their parents as a means to learn how to navigate their lives. Researcher Mark Nielsen, as reported in Psychological Science, determined that human children, unlike our animal counterparts, will over-mimic an instructing adult even if the instructions do not make sense when attempting to complete a task. If an adult brushed a box with a feather before opening it, the human child would mimic that brushing action. In animals, the subject would only mimic to the level of achieving the the goal quickly.
If you approach a conversation with your child feeling angry or frustrated and then, commit to yelling, your child will approach the situation by matching your energy. However, if you choose to approach a tantrum with a deep sense of calm, it may take a little while for the really stubborn ones, but eventually, the child will match your energy.
- Be Kind to the Inner Child – What one understands as a child will often be really different when examined with adult eyes. Did your parents really hate you that much? Or, did they love you so much that they would sacrifice valuable time with you to work a second or third job to make ends meet? Keep in mind, this is time they will never get back. Are they really preventing you from going to the junior high school homecoming dance because they’re evil? Or, did they have a really good reason for keeping you home during the pandemic?
I have come to the conclusion that a lot of adult mental health issues are stemmed in what we learned as children. In their research with subjects in the 70 to 91 year old age range, Margareta Sjöblom, Kerstin Öhrling, Maria Prellwitz and Catrine Kostenius determined that the inner child had long lasting impacts on a person’s life. They stated:
“The participants’ experiences indicated that the inner child was present throughout the lifespan, was found in challenges that occurred in life, and could turn something bad into something good. However, the presence of the inner child could also be a source for development throughout life and could interfere with the person. “
It can be really easy, as adults, to say or do things that seem simple and innocent to an adult; but are very hurtful to a child’s perception of the events happening. I’ve heard of examples where children were told they were the “stupid child”, thus these children should “focus on beauty and hope to attract a successful mate.” I have also heard stories of children being called the “ugly child”. As such, these children were instructed to “focus on education so that if they cannot attract a proper mate, they won’t die of hunger.” Seemingly innocent to the adult speaker, but very hurtful and for some children, life defining.
As hypnotherapists, we spend a lot of time healing the cracks and broken aspects of our clients’ inner child. If we, as parents, can be mindful of the things we say automatically or the things we do that could potentially break your child’s inner child, your child will suffer less and, in the end, will experience a more healthy childhood leading to a more healthy, more resilient adulthood.