Mary Sheedy Kurcinka Ed.D and Lynn Jessen MA
Your child dumps his cereal bowl on the floor. The four year old knocks down the two year old. You tell your child he can’t buy something and now he’s screaming at the top of his lungs in the middle of the store.
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In the Spirited Child Facebook group, parents often ask, “How do you cope with the judgement from others?” One strategy is to remember you are not responsible for the feelings of other adults – that’s on them. Your responsibility is the well-being of your family. Another key strategy is to focus on what you have more control over, which is setting your child up for success in difficult situations. When you do, there will be fewer challenging behaviors for those critics to judge.
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Your child is screaming, “You are stupid.” Or worse, “I hate you!” You feel yourself spiraling, every cell in your body triggered. Do you yell too? Flee? Burst into tears? Or do you somehow stay cool?
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Remember the old days when getting out the door merely required putting on your coat and walking out? Or, when someone said, why don’t we go? You just went?
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Perhaps it was the foot stomp punctuating the shrill rebuttal to your simple question that caught your attention today. Lately, it seems “normal” for your child to scream every time you ask her to do anything. How did this happen?
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“Do you want to pick up the blocks or the books?” you ask your child. That’s when she cheerily offers, “I’ll pick up the dolls.” This was not one of the options you’ve offered, yet she’s still cleaning up and it’s true the dolls do need to be picked up too.
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You have offered your child a choice but he didn’t respond or doesn’t want either option you have presented. Believe it or not, this is an opportunity to teach your child that he is responsible for what happens to him.
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Help! My four-year-old son starts screaming the minute something doesn’t go his way. There is no “wind-up” he just lets loose and within seconds he’s screaming and flailing, trying to kick and hit me.
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