Explosive Tantrums - 10 year old Michael

This is an e-mail from a mother of one of my clients, an 10 year-old boy prone to frequent explosive tantrums.

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Hi Dr. Childress,

Since yesterday there have been countless times (already about a dozen times today) that I've had to remind myself not to focus on behavior but to focus on Michael’s inner experience. I get it!  However, practically, I’m having trouble with how to respond.

An example: we were all doing chores to get the house cleaned up. I had Jonathon put away kitchen towels (with protest, but ok, he's 3), Mary unloaded the dishwasher, but then went on to do much more (I heaped on praise), but Michael flat out refused.  He sat on the kitchen chair, rocking back and forth, saying, "I caaaaaan't. I caaaaaan't. I just want to play my gaaaaaameees."

I said, over-exagerated, "aw, Michael, sure you can. We all don't like chores, but we still have to do them."  His behavior then escalated. He "fell" down to the floor, rolling back and forth sayihg "I caaan't, I caaaan't, I'm not going to, I'm not going to.  You can't make me. You can't make me." And all of this being mixed with fake laughing and fake giggling, you know, the really annoying fake loud laugh and giggle meant to annoy.  And this annoying behavior sent me into a fit of wanting to lay in and scream at him for being so rude and obstinate and defiant.

I didn't punish him and his chores did not get done (well they did...Mary did his for him) and he's now upstairs playing his video games.

I feel like he "won", he got away with bad behavior, he didn't help with chores, he's upstairs playing his video game, and I did nothing to focus in on his needs.

What should I have done? This is really, really tough and makes me feel like a horrible, ill-equipped mother, being totally truthful.

Help :-)

Sarah

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Here is my response:

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Hi Sarah

I’m going to offer commentary during your description of the therapeutic opportunity.

An example: we were all doing chores to get the house cleaned up.

Commentary:  Three children one mom.  The ratio of relationship to child is stretched thin.  In a well-regulated family this could go okay.  But in a family of high relationship needs this is likely going to be too thin.  So already I’m expecting some trouble.

One thing you may want to consider in the future is to “scaffold” Michael doing his chores one-on-one, while the other kids do other stuff, so that your complete focus can be on Michael.  If it was just about task completion, you might as well do the tasks yourself, but the goal is to scaffold Michael in doing the task.  Gradually, over time you’ll begin to reduce the extent of scaffolding support you provide to Michael.

Your initial intent:  An intent-to-task. This is understandable, the goal is the household chores.  But the relationship needs of a child are likely going to request an intent-to-be-with (perhaps emerging through an intent-to-understand).

When the child communicates a challenge to the parent’s intent-to-task (if we are trying to respond therapeutically) we need to shift to an intent-to-understand / intent-to-be-with that re-establishes relationship, that organizes the child’s inner experience (through our “eyes-of-the-other” recognition/definition of this inner experience), and that fosters increased development of sophistication in communication (from protest behavior to emotional signaling initially, then to increased verbal communication as the process progresses over repeated cycles).

I had Jonathon put away kitchen towels (with protest, but ok, he's 3),

Jonathon is spot-on the age of attachment system activation.  He presents with high protest, but in a gentle way, but he nevertheless demands attention.  This draws parental focus (love) away from Michael (and Mary – I worry about Mary).  Michael can’t compete with Jonathon on developmental immaturity (at 3 years old, Jonathon has him beat hands down), so Michael may develop “symptoms” of incompetence to compete with Jonathon.

Mary unloaded the dishwasher, but then went on to do much more

Sweetie.  Mary appears to be trying to carve out her own niche of parental bonding through being the angel.  Jonathon has immature-baby wrapped up, Michael has a problem child version of immature-baby… so what’s left for Mary… wonderful angel.  Michael needs to develop into more angel and Mary needs to develop into more problem child… come-on children, let’s share…

(I heaped on praise),

Deservedly so.  Praise is often used as “reinforcement,” based on studies training lab rats.  Doesn’t work with children.  Human children are immensely complex and social.  I’d recommend doing the same thing but changing how you think about it to… “I heaped on lots of loving.”  Praise is for what we do (intent-to-task), love is for who we are (intent-to-be-with).  Humans are social animals, make it personal.  She wasn’t well-behaved, or responsible… she was nice to you.  It’s personal.  “Thank you so much sweetie, I really appreciate your help.” <big hug and smooch>

but Michael flat out refused.

Protest behavior.  Therapeutic opportunity.  Shut down your intent-to-task and shift to intent-to-understand in order to bring organization to his inner experience and to begin the process of facilitating a longer-term increase in communicative level.  Use the task to organize the focus of your intent-to-understand, but shut down your internal press toward task completion in order to give increased time to Michael’s relationship needs (i.e., an intent-to-be-with).

Approach Michael with a positive emotional tone and an intent-to-understand his perspective from his point of view.  Your tone can include a mild challenge to his protest behavior (i.e., a gentle intent-to-change; making your response a “complex communication” of nurturance and challenge), but any intent-to-change should be only the slightest hint and should be dwarfed by a nurturing positive emotional tone and the intent-to-understand (we’ll turn up the volume on the intent-to-change later in the communication dialogue).

“Michael?  What’s going on, sweetie.  I need your help in getting some things done.” <make it personal… I need your help>.

He sat on the kitchen chair, rocking back and forth, saying, "I caaaaaan't. I caaaaaan't. I just want to play my gaaaaaameees."

Stay with his experience.  Help him organize the meaning of his experience.  Let’s explore what this is really all about.  We’re about to embark on a voyage of discovery.  Is he afraid he’ll be unsuccessful and that he’ll lose your loving?  Are his brain systems currently captivated by the happy of the game and he’s experiencing intense disappointment at having to stop happy and do un-fun?  Does he simply want your loving or your special attention apart from Jonathon and Mary, does he need to be special to you?

Depending on your read of his current emotional state, you may want to feed some positive happy emotion into him by offering an affectionate gesture.  In this case, I might offer a soft rub-rub to his upper back or shoulder, all the while maintaining a calm, nurturing tone of concern for his communicated distress (i.e., his emotional signaling).

I said, over-exaggerated, "aw, Michael, sure you can. We all don't like chores, but we still have to do them." 

Ouch. This  response is a denial of his experience and it represents an intent-to-change / intent-to-task, which ultimately communicates that he’s an object, you care about what he does, not who he is.  This will hurt more and will likely provoke further deterioration in his emotional functioning.

Stay with his experience for a few more relationship beats (called “relational moves”).  You can offer this intent-to-change and prompt to task, but do it toward the end of the communication-relationship sequence.  At the early phases, the therapeutic goal is to help him understand the meaning of his inner experience and to provide him with relationship support for his distress.  Three relationship beats on an intent-to-understand his experience from his perspective.

"I caaaaaan't. I caaaaaan't. I just want to play my gaaaaaameees."

“Really?”  <our surprise communicates a gentle challenge that his reality is odd – this is enough of a denial of his experience.  We then need to repair even this ever-so-mild a breech in our psychological connection with him (called the “intersubjective field”) by entering his world from his point of view.

“You’re having a lot of fun playing that game, aren’t you.”  Which one are you playing?” <joining with his experience – providing our “eyes-of-the-other” to his inner experience – followed by a question to foster increased communication.  Taking the time to ask a question related to his activity also communicates that we’re not in a hurry, i.e., an intent-to-be-with on our part.>

<smile – rub-rub – feeding affection/positive emotion into his emotional system – which will help relax his emotional locking up> “I know, you really like playing those games, don’t you?”  <psychological bonding with his experience, synchronizing our nervous system to his through our mutual mirror neuron networks, which may help him maintain the organization of his nervous system when we transition our nervous system back to an intent-to-task – because his nervous system will be in a supportive synchrony with ours.

So far, we’ve offered Michael two beats of an intent-to-understand with a dose of positive emotion; and the gift of time we give to him in doing this communicates an intent-to-be-with.  Now let’s shift to another gentle breech – make it personal – and continue a positive emotional tone.

“but sweetie, I need your help to get some stuff done.”

"I caaaaaan't. I caaaaaan't.” <I’ll just pretend he continues this kind of response. However, often times the child will become cooperative as we engage in relationship supportive dialogue.>

Repair the breech in the psychological connection (breech-and-repair sequences).

<Continuing with a soft nurturing tone> “Oh honey, you’re really having a hard time with this, aren’t you.” <bringing our “eyes-of-the-other” to his inner experience while also communicating a nurturing response to his distress; i.e., when you’re in pain come to me for loving.>

“What makes you think you can’t do it?”  <intent-to-understand – this has to be an honest intent-to-understand.  The false intent-to-understand seeks the child’s response so that we can then invalidate the child’s experience and convince the child to do what we want.  The key is our response to the child’s response.  Do we maintain an intent-to-understand (i.e., and authentic intent-to-understand the child’s experience from the child’s point of view), or do we shift to an intent-to-change by invalidating the child’s reasons?> 

"I caaaaaan't. I caaaaaan't.”

“So, you’re just having a hard time getting yourself to leave the games.  You know what I think, I think you’re just having so much fun playing your games that you find it hard to stop doing something that’s so much fun, especially if you have to do something un-fun.  Is that it?”  <continued intent-to-understand by defining his inner experience for him – offering him our best guess as to his inner experience.>

"I caaaaaan't. I caaaaaan't.”

<rub-rub>  “Hmm.  So what can we do about this?”  <the goal is to develop a mutual intent>  “Hey, I have an idea, how about you help me do two things, I’ll give you a big hug, and then you can go back to your games.  Will that work for you?”  <will that work for you is my favorite phrase in developing a mutual intention.>

"I caaaaaan't. I caaaaaan't.”

“Really, you can’t help me?”  <a slightly more adult, slightly less nurturing tone.  Mild social guilt induction – make it personal.  “Really” communicates an expectation of cooperation, “you can’t help me” makes it personal and applies “moral suasion” (a mild sense of guilt arising from feelings of social responsibility – moral: right and wrong; suasion: like persuasion – moral suasion: persuading based on issues of social right and wrong.)>

"I caaaaaan't. I caaaaaan't.”

<adopting a more adult tone – but not angry>  “But you know what sweetie, I need your help, so you need to put the game down now and come join me in the kitchen.”  <a calm and confident communication of adult authority – adult tone of voice – authority but not angry – but we’re definitely moving the situation forward.>

"I caaaaaan't. I caaaaaan't.”

<sharper tone>  “Michael, listen.  I need your help.  Jonathon is helping, Mary is helping.  I love you.  But, if you’re not going to help me you’re going to have a punishment for disobedience.”  <calm and direct adult tone – major breech – seeking to activate the dominance-submission networks of the authority system.>

Can be followed by an immediate repair of the breech, “Come here, sweetie, give me a hug”  <smile, soften the tone into nurturing again (breech-and-repair sequences) encourage cooperation – hopefully he’ll move forward into cooperation at this point>

If he doesn’t move into cooperation at this point, then proceed with punishment.  Anger? Send him to room?  Take away his game?  Its up to you, they’re all pretty much equivalent. He’ll cry and tantrum.  That’s the way of things.  Return to complete your task.  Calm and confident adult authority.

When the punishment is over and you’re in a more even place, maybe later in the evening, review the sequence of events with Michael, offering a nurturing positive tone and an intent-to-understand, bringing your “eyes-of-the-other” to the sequence of his experience.

His behavior then escalated. He "fell" down to the floor, rolling back and forth sayihg "I caaan't, I caaaan't, I'm not going to, I'm not going to. YOu can't make me. You can't make me."

If it gets to this point, repair the breech as above.  He’s more important than chores.

But ultimately, we’re going to move forward and he either needs to cooperate and help, or bad things will happen (i.e., a punishment).  But we’re going to add a therapeutic phase ahead of the authority-punishment phase.

And all of this being mixed with fake laughing and fake giggling, you know, the really annoying fake loud laugh and giggle meant to annoy.

Anxiety.  Not really positive emotion.  Anxiety because you’re going to get angry. 

I suspect he’s afraid that he’s not going to be able to do the task because he’s locking up emotionally-behaviorally already, and you’re going to become angry and everything is going to deteriorate.  And he’s right, that’s exactly what happened.  He needs help getting through the current lock-up and his fear that his current lock-up is going to lead to angry and a deterioration in your relationship.

And this annoying behavior sent me into fit of wanting to lay in and scream at him for being so rude and obstinate and defiant.

Understandable.  Do your best in the early going to offer a positive emotional tone, an intent-to-understand his experience from his perspective, and the gift-of-time (an intent-to-be-with), this is the therapeutic period.  But once you’ve done this, it’s time to move on.  Make it personal – mild social guilt induction (moral suasion), intent-to-task; intent-to-change (activating the dominance-submission networks of the authority system; punish-induce suffering, he cries and tantrums and we wait for it to resolve. Offer love at the end, a final dose of mild frowny face for the tantrum, love again and move forward.

I didn't punish him and his chores did not get done (well they did...Mary did his for him) and he's now upstairs playing his video games.

Okay.  That’s fine.  I’d go and talk to him in a parent-adult firm-stern disappointed tone (tinge of anger but not overt – just stern).

“Michael, I’m really upset that you didn’t help me.  Mary had to do your chores, and that’s just not right.  Do you think it’s right that Mary should do your chores while you play your games?  I don’t.” 

“Do you think you should be punished for making Mary do your chores? --- I’m going to have to think about it.  But at the very least, I want you to apologize to Mary and thank her for doing your chores.  If you do that, I may decide not to punish you.”  <social guilt induction –right and wrong – we do things because we love people, not to avoid punishment.>

Punishment is personal.  You annoy me so I annoy you.  He was mean to you by not helping, he was mean to Mary by making her do his chores.  Seemingly merits suffering if you want.  He’ll cry.  Your message to him: then don’t annoy the big gorilla.

Mary deserves a big hug-n-snuggle and a treat.  Arrange a mother-daughter time when grandmother is watching the boys to go get a frozen yogurt or some treat with her (my daughter would choose a Starbuck’s drink).

One thing I did with my kids is to wave my hand in the air in a sprinkling motion while I said “Brownie Points.”  Brownie Points weren’t really anything specific, it just meant that for a kid who had been earning a fair amount of Brownie Points I would be more likely to change a “no” to a “yes” when they asked for something.  It’s not a formal reward, it’s a social acknowledgement of appreciation.  Sometimes my kids would bring this up when asking for something, “dad, can we go get a smoothie” --- “no, not today” --- “I’ve been earning a lot of Brownie Points.” --- “Yea…. You’re right.   Okay”

I feel like he "won", he got away with bad behavior, he didn't help with chores, he's upstairs playing his video game, and I did nothing to focus in on his needs.

We want to move away from win and lose, and it’s not bad behavior.  His brain systems got scrambled and we weren’t able to help him unscramble them.  In terms of power, we have all the power.  We can do all sorts of things to make him miserable, take away his TV and games, yell at him, fail him in school, put him in jail, reject him, fire him from work, all sorts of bad things can happen for the kids who are disobedient of adult authority.  Believe me, these kids are not happy campers.  They’re miserable.  We have all the power.

He was mean and un-loving.  Ouch.  That’s not right.  You love him, why does he treat you and Mary so mean?  That’s not right… that’s the long-term coercive press of our social communication that we’re going to use with him.  When he is captivated by fun and has difficulty getting unstuck to do un-fun, we want him to activate his love for us to help un-stick himself from the fun, and to help overcome his aversion to un-fun.

We need him to cooperate because he loves us, because it makes him happy to make us happy, because we love him and he wants to maintain our love (we want to establish and use our psychological connection; i.e., the synchrony of our brain systems can support the organized functioning of his brain systems).  And, if he needs a little bump from the dominance-submission networks of the authority system to help him over that final hurdle, we can help him with that.  Don’t annoy the big gorilla because the big gorilla will make you suffer.

But first, we want to provide Michael with a therapeutic response to help him define the meaning of his inner experience (through our approach with a positive emotional tone and our intent-to-understand his experience from his perspective – our “eyes-of-the-other brought to his inner experience – the formation of a psychological connection) and the therapeutic opportunity to communicate this inner experience to others in an ever more elaborated and sophisticated ways.

It’s a three-step process

1)   Approach with an intent-to-understand – at least three relationship beats

2)   Orient him to the social context of other people’s needs, and external rules, limitations, and restrictions

3)   Negotiate a mutual intention – not necessarily what you want – not necessarily what he wants – but what you can BOTH agree on

Once we move through this process (we can cycle several times through steps one and two – but we shouldn’t spend too long with step three – offer one, maybe two potential solutions… then move forward), if a mutual intention cannot be developed, then we’re the big gorilla, we’re the adults, it’s up to us to decide what needs to happen and to then make it happen.  If this involves a punishment for annoying us, then so be it.  But the punishment is not for “bad behavior” (people have a right to have a different opinion or different wants-needs-desires), the punishment is personal – you annoyed me, so I’m going to annoy you. 

It’s simply about power, and that’s fine.  I have the power (I’m the big gorilla) and you need to do what I say or I’m going to use that power to make you suffer (punishment).  That social communication of hierarchy status should activate the dominance-submission networks of the child’s brain, which will then turn off the child’s personal motivational press and allow the child to adopt our motivational agenda.  If it doesn’t, deliver a punishment (anger, removal of something pleasurable, lecturing, restricting freedom – time out/room restriction, whatever…)

In this way we build three brain networks with Michael,

1)   self-awareness

2)   other-awareness

3)   social cooperation and negotiation to get his needs met within a socially organized context of other people’s needs

By sequencing these steps, we also build (we build what we use) the transition networks between these three systems, so that over the course of time (months and years) we will build, through use-dependent processes, Michael’s ability to become aware of (and communicate in language) his inner experience --- then transition --- to his looking around to take in the needs of others and any relevant rules and restrictions that affect his needs and desires --- then transition --- to developing a way to get his needs and desires met within the context of the social needs of others and the rules and restrictions of the setting.

We build what we use.  So, right now, we want to “scaffold” Michael’s use of these processes.  Behavior is the outward symptom, but behavior is not the focus of intervention.

What should I have done?

Right now, I’d suggest having a cup of hot cocoa (or glass of wine) and a nice hot bubble bath.

This is really, really tough and makes me feel like a horrible, ill-equipped mother, being totally truthful.

Children are designed by nature to be annoying… children are supposed to annoy us… and they can be pretty good at it, can’t they.  Deep breathe and smile.

Sometimes it helps to go into our children’s bedroom when their asleep and watch them sleeping.  They look so angelic that all our frustrations just seem to lift away.

Angry Tirades - Asperger's Spectrum 10 year old William

This is an e-mail from a client’s mother.  The client is a 10-year old boy who was diagnosed (by others) variously as ADHD or Asperger’s Disorder or Bipolar.  I can understand these diagnoses, and I frequently run into these type of previous diagnoses for the type of issues displayed by my client. 

However, my diagnostic interpretation of the symptom pattern places it more in the DSM-IV category of an anxiety related disorder secondary to disruptions in his capacity to metabolize emotions through the communication-relationship systems.

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Hi Dr. Childress,

I'm in the throws of one of William’s meltdowns and could use your advice on how to respond and discipline right now.

Background: I had asked William not to take his glass of ice water into the living room for fear it would get knocked over and broken. As he crossed the threshold from the kitchen into the living room, not minding me, he tripped and the glass flew out of his hand, shattering in pieces on the floor.

My response: in my admittedly not happy voice and in my punishing, yelling and reprimanding voice I said, "Damn it William, this is exactly what I was warning against and exactly why I said not to take your glass into the living room.  You chose to disobey me and in doing so dropped the glass on the floor, causing it to shatter.  Please go sit on the sofa while I clean the broken glass up."  

He screamed back at me, "No, I don't have to.  Glass doesn't fly this far.  I don't have to listen to you."  So this back and forth tit-for-tat tirade ensued (again, I'm not proud of it, but it was the impulsive response from both of us).

I said, "William, I need you to listen and follow the rules.  If you choose not to listen you will lose a privilege."  He started yelling and saying that my rules were stupid and that he hated me and that I was the worst mother ever and then he got up off the sofa and started walking, barefoot, on the floor where the broken glass was, knowing doing so would make me upset.

I responded by telling him his friend Joseph could not come over and play because of his tantrum, so he replied with, "Yes he can.  I'm not listening to you," and he stormed outside to play (I knew Joseph was not home from school yet, so going outside was not an opportunity for him to disobey and go find Joseph).  He came back in and said, "Please mom, please let Joseph come play."  And I said, "No, I'm sorry. You were rude and disrespectful and you are not going to have playtime with your friends when you show this behavior."

He replied back that I was horrible and mean and that I didn't know how to raise children and that he hated me and would never speak to me again.  He started to go outside and I told him he was not allowed, now, to go outside because his disrespect was continuing and he was being defiant.  I asked him to go upstairs and he screamed, "No. I don't have to!" and kicked a wooden basket across the living room and then threw an umbrella across the living room.

I don't know how to implement your suggested technique here... I don't know how to be a disciplinarian in this situation, and be admittedly angry, and at the same time show love and concern for his frustrations.

Can you provide any guidelines?

Cynthia

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According to his mother, these type of interactions happen on a daily basis, often multiple times during a day.

This is my response: 

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Cynthia,

This is a very difficult situation, particularly in shifting from one response approach to a new response approach.

First, it is okay that you are angry with him for the broken glass.  He disobeyed your wishes and bad things happened.  You now need to clean up a mess and someone could get hurt with the broken glass.  You are not happy that he did not listen to you're wishes regarding the glass, because there are reasons you said not to take the glass into the living room.  So this will be the core of the message that will be conveyed... but it may take 30 minutes, 2 hours, or a day and a half to finally get to this message.

The first issue is to express your frustration with his disobedience, then when he further "dysregulates" into excessively angry defiance, the immediate task-at-hand becomes to help him restore some degree of interpersonal and emotional regulation so that he is capable of incorporating your anger (rejection), frustration, and disappointment without it becoming overwhelming for him.

His expressions of "I hate you, you're the worst mother" are actually "I adore you and it is far too painful for me to have you be angry (rejecting) toward me.  I'm overwhelmed by my emotional pain and I don't know how to repair our relationship.  You're a wonderful mother, and so your anger means that I'm a horrible person.  You're rejecting me because I'm a horrible person.  I'll never be able to be good enough to get your love, and that's too painful for me (that "I'm a horrible person and I'm in soooo much pain” is why he started to walk on the glass; self-punishment for being horrible and an outward expression of his inner pain).  I'm in so much emotional-psychological pain and I don't know how to make it stop, I don't know how to find your love again when this happens.  AHHHHHHHHH!!!! Help me!"

Anger is "you hurt me - so I hurt you"

The degree of his anger is the degree of his hurt.  He's extremely angry and rejecting, so he feels extremely hurt and rejected.  But he's communicating this in the second part of anger "... so I hurt you" rather than in the first part "you hurt me."  When he broke the glass and you yelled at him, he should cry.  Crying draws nurturance to heal the pain.  Instead, he responds with anger and provokes greater anger (rejection) from you, and things spiral out of control.  He doesn't know how to stop this process when it starts...

You're the adult, so it’s up to you to help him escape this downward spiral.

When he starts to dysregulate even more, saying crazy things like he hates you and you're the worst mother ever (whenever he says this type of crazy stuff you know he's gone off the deep end and he needs the loving mom to bring him back rather than the angry-disciplining-instructing mom --- we can get to that mom later, but not when he's in such excessive pain of "I hate you, you're the worst mom ever, I don't have to do what you say.”  At that point he needs emotional rescuing).

So, once he goes off the deep end... take a few moments for yourself, maybe walk away, collect your thoughts and emotions, and realize that he is in horrible, horrible emotional pain because he feels you don't love him anymore.  He's so God awful lonely and scared and wants his gentle nurturing mom to help him... but he doesn't know how to find her.

Collect yourself, and bring him the nurturing mom.  Help him understand that his apparent anger is the second half of his experience (... so I hurt you) but that he also has the first half (you hurt me).  Nurture him.  

In a soft, compassionate tone of voice that understands his emotional pain, "Oh, sweetie, I think you're feeling sad and afraid, because you're saying awfully mean things.  Did I do something that makes you sad or hurt?"

"Yeah, you’re mean."

"Was it because I got mad at you?"

"Yeah."

"So you don't like me to be mad at you, do you?"

"No"

<Very soft-nurturing tone> "Oh sweetie, I'm sorry.  I love you so much.  Come her and give me a big hug."

If a hug happens, then... in a calm and nurturing tone, explain how the broken glass is a mess, and that you asked him not to do that.  Stay nurturing.  If he tolerates this... then flash him a scowl, but then give another hug.  At bedtime tonight, maybe revisit the issue of his disobedience and how you set limits to keep things safe.  He needs to listen to you because you know what you’re talking about... then give another hug or a rub-pat-pat.

If he rejects the offer of a hug, consider disengaging for a few minutes, then go back and try to re-engage with love around giving and receiving a hug.  The goal is to maintain relationship and build the strength of the relationship so that it can tolerate an ever-increasing intensity of your anger (rejection) without falling apart into crazy-angry emotional tirades.

Ultimately, over the course of 30 minutes, several hours, several days, communicate the message of --- he disobeyed your wishes and bad things happened.  You needed to clean up a mess and someone could have gotten hurt with the broken glass.  You are not happy that he did not listen to you're wishes regarding the glass, because there are reasons you said not to take the glass into the living room.  

<with a mild but stern tone> "Don't do that again!  <continuing a tone of authority without anger> When I say stop, you needs to stop.  If you disagree you needs to talk it over with me, but you are not to simply disobey me... Okay, William?" <with a smile but also with a slightly stern tone of voice and/or an upraised eyebrow of disapproval, offering William a mixed complex communication of nurturance and authority>

Then give him a big hug and abundant affection.

We'll discuss this some more during our session.  Give him some loving.  He's more important than water on the floor... 

Help him to find ways to find his loving mom when bad things happen.  You can, and will, return to the angry (slightly) and disciplining mom later.  There'll be time enough for that.  But first respond to William's pain and psychological loneliness.  Once the relationship is fixed and positive and strong and stable, then we can infuse some anger-rejection (in small tolerable doses - gradually increasing the doses as he is able to tolerate and integrate them into his nervous system).

Best of luck,

Craig Childress, Psy.D.

Clinical Psychologist, PSY 18857

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30 minutes later, this was the mother’s response:

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Goodness what fabulous advice.

I asked William to come see me.  I gave him wide open arms and he came scurrying over and gave me a big giant hug.  I said, "William, you know, I love you tons.  You said some pretty mean and hurtful things."  True to what you typed he said, "Yeah because I was angry."  And I replied back by asking him if he felt that I didn't love him and if my anger made him feel rejected by me?  He, with big huge eyes, said yes.  He asked if he could call his friend Joseph and I said no, explaining that Joseph not coming to play was a consequence of his disobedience, but that (in the middle of big huge 2nd hug squeeze from him) I loved him so much, that I thought he was an amazing big brother and a wonderful baseball player and a great son.  And that was that.

Great advice, thank you.  I'll spend more time on this over the next few days, too.

Cynthia

General Advice 2

I received the following e-mail:

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Subject: My son

Hello Dr. Childress.

I saw some of your videos on ehow.  Thank you for posting them.  My son is 11 years old he has ADHD and now he is having difficulties at school because he is lying and hitting girls, and he makes excuses for his mistakes. I can’t afford a consultation with you because I don’t have insurance.  I am frustrated that nobody wants to be his friend and he is getting worse, please help.

Janet

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Here is my response:

Hello Janet,

Professional standards of practice prevent me from commenting on your specific situation because of complex professional issues related to online therapy and the development of a professional client-therapist relationship.  But I can offer a general discussion of family issues.

  

Behavior is a symptom.  It is the integration, or non-integration of brain systems that is the cause.

Just like a situation in which a child has an infection that causes a fever.  The fever itself is not itself a “problem behavior,” it is a symptom of the underlying problem in the body.  The fever (the symptom) is the body’s communication that there is some underlying difficulty that the body is having, such as the infection.

Similarly, for a child, the child’s “behavior problem” is a communication from the child’s brain systems about some underlying difficulty that is causing the behavior.  In general, the presentation of “behavior problems” represents a communication (what's called a "behavioral communication") that some area of the child’s life is painful.

Most often, this emotional pain arises from difficulty in two systems.  The primary source involves problems in the Relationship Systems (Attachment Security and Psychological Connection); with secondary difficulties arising within the Emotional Systems (typically involving feelings of psychological loneliness-alienation).

Oftentimes the primary difficulty in the Relationship Systems is a disruption in Psychological Connection.  The Psychological Connection system allows us to feel what other people feel “as-if” their emotions were our own.  There is a wonderful little video regarding the underlying brain cells (called “mirror neurons”) that are associated with this Psychological Connection system at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/mirror-neurons.html 

The Psychological Connection system is what allows us to feel what the actors feel in the movies.  We feel the actors’ emotions “as-if” these emotions were our own.

Children feel what their parents feel, just like we feel what the actors feel in the movies.  But what happens when we're watching a movie that becomes too scary?  What do we do?  We look away - we break connection.  So what do children do when their parents are too stressed, too angry, too sad, too anxious?  All of these feelings are imported into our children just "as-if" they were feeling these feelings themselves.  What do children do when our feelings as parents become too painful for them?  They break psychological connection with us.  They don't allow themselves to remain psychologically connected to our brain state, to our feelings.

When there is a break in this psychological connection, the feeling becomes one of psychological loneliness-alienation, which is an extremely painful state for humans.  Our children typically do not understand why they're in pain (that it's a feeling of psychological loneliness caused by having to break psychological connection with us); they may just feel the pain... "something's wrong and I don't know what it is. I'm loved, so it's not that.  But I'm just not comfortable, I'm just not happy.  It must be because of <this or that attribution of meaning - I need this or that thing - this or that person hurt my feelings, etc.>

In terms of the Emotional System’s effect on the Relationship Systems, the emotion of anger always breaks psychological connection.  The positive emotion of happy builds psychological connection.  Based on this feature alone, I typically recommend a strong reduction in the amount of expressed anger and a corresponding increase in expressions of positive, happy, and affectionate feelings within the parent-child relationship.

  

Anger signals two things:  1) "this is important," and 2) "you hurt me so I hurt you."  Anger is an emotion of violence and is designed to be targeted toward outside threats (i.e., the predator in the jungle).  Anger is too violent an emotion for use within the family or social group of companions.  

Within the family or social group of companions anger should, at most, be expressed as annoyance and irritation.  Within the family or social group, the signaling of anger should be quickly translated to hurt ("you hurt me so I hurt you") so that the hurt can be metabolized through communication and relationship rather than remaining in an expressive form of anger, which damages relationships because of anger's inherent interpersonal violence.

Emotional pain is metabolized through the Relationship and Communication Systems.  If there are disruptions within either of these systems, pain cannot be effectively metabolized through the social field.

Happiness integrates brain systems and promotes social bonding.  This is our biggest ally.  We need to find and increase this emotion.  The positive emotion of happiness also signals "this is good - move toward this" and so provides us with a positive motivational pull and direction.  Find this emotion.  Build this emotion.  Within the marriage; within yourself; with your children.  If there are barriers to this emotion, begin to problem solve getting rid of these barriers.  Find this emotion, because its job is to help us find the direction out of difficult situations.  

While the specifics of the positive-happy emotion may not be fully accurate, there is nevertheless something in the zone surrounding the triggering of that positive-happy emotion that represents truth; that offers direction.

Affection is always in order with children.  Affection prompts happy.  Random affection bursts with your spouse (if available) and with your children may help improve the overall family environment, even if specific issues remain.

As parents, the most important thing we can give our children is a calm, relaxed, and pleasant brain state of our own, which will allow our children to remain psychologically connected to us.  By remaining psychologically connected to us, our children are not psychologically alone, they belong; they are part of the social group; and the intact relationship systems of love and connection can help them metabolize their hurts and sadnesses through the communication and relationship systems of social relationship.

It’s not about “behavior,” --- behavior is a symptom --- it is about communication and social relationship. 

Communication is much more complex than simply verbal language. The mirror neurons of the Psychological Connection System are designed to register the intentions of other people.  We read other people's intent, what's motivating their actions.  The most important thing we can do as parents is attend to what our intent is that is organizing our response to our children; what is our intent that is motivating our response.   

There are four primary intents:

The Intent to Understand

The Intent to Be-With

The Intent to Task

The Intent to Change

The Intent to Understand (a simple curiosity to understand the other person's experience from the other person's perspective) fosters productive communication.  

The Intent to Be-With communicates self-value and builds self-worth and personal confidence.

The Intent to Task and the Intent to Change shut down communication (although they can have other positive benefits).

The Intent to Understand and Intent to Be-With both promote positive psychological connection and help to resolve problems in the Relationship Systems.  However, these two motivating intentions are very fragile and can be easily destroyed by the Intent to Task and Intent to Change.

  

Typically, I recommend a three-step approach to responding to children’s "protest behavior" (classically referred to as “problem behavior”). 

1.    Approach the child with an Intent to Understand

Usually I offer three responses to the child from an Intent to Understand the child’s experience from the child’s point of view.  This response set involves a simple curiosity, and includes the complete absence of an Intent to Task or an Intent to Change.

Many times children will say "I don't know" in response to our efforts to understand their experience from their perspective.  This is typically an accurate response, they don't know what their experience means, and they lack the thinking and communication abilities to identify and describe their experience.

When this occurs, simply take your best guess as to what they might be feeling or experiencing ("I wonder if your feeling xyz...?" "it seems like you might be feeling abc”).  Offering children the opportunity to describe their experience, even if they can't, is nevertheless a valuable communication process in that it will ultimately serve to develop their ability to communicate their experience.

In other cases of "I don't know," it can be helpful to ask the child to simply describe the events leading up to the child's activity or response ("so tell me what happened... ok, wait, and then what happened next?... hold on, wait, wait wait, before we go there, so first xyz happened, then abc occurred, and then what happened next?").  This process can offer us information that we can use to help us offer guesses as to the child's inner experience ("so I wonder if you were feeling abc?") and it promotes our children's ability to describe their experience, first in concrete form, then later with more emotional-psychological complexity.

We can also offer a guess based on the general principle of, "people make us feel the way they feel."  ("I wonder if you might be feeling frustrated and helpless, like you’re all alone and nobody is helping, and everybody is just criticizing you all the time?" --- offered because you, as a parent, feel frustrated and helpless, like you're alone in trying to deal with your child's "problem behavior” (even your child is not helping), and you find yourself correcting and criticizing your child all the time.  Take a guess that this might be what your child is feeling and is creating in you as a form of "bond-of-understanding.")

2.    Orient the child to the social context

The next step after sincerely seeking to understand the child’s experience from the child’s point of view, is to bring into the discussion all of the relevant context factors, such as rules, restrictions, limitations, and the wants and needs of other people. 

“So you were feeling xyz because abc happened.  I see.  But the problem is… <describe the rule, restriction, limitation, the rights and needs of others, etc.>”

Often times, this is where we stop as parents, and we simply command our children to do what we want them to do based on these external context demands.  But it can be very useful to take the dialogue one step further…

3.    Negotiate a mutual intention with the child

This involves coming up with a solution that meets both the child’s needs (based on an understanding for the child’s experience from the child’s point of view) AND the needs of others expressed by rules and restrictions, limits, and the expressed likes, needs, and wants of others.

The goal is a communication "pendulum swing" back-and-forth between the child's needs/desires/intentions and then back to the parent's needs/desires/intentions then back to the child's needs/desires/intentions... Back and forth in a dialogue-of-understanding and context.

In following these three steps we build three important brain systems (“we build what we use), 1) the child’s own self-awareness and ability to appropriately communicate his or her experience, 2) an awareness of the context of self-experience involving the rules and restrictions of the setting and the wants and needs of others, and 3) the ability to socially resolve his or her own self-experience within the context of social restrictions and limitations.  In addition, by sequencing these three steps, we build (“we build what we use”) the transition networks between these three systems, with the goal of ultimately building the brain networks that will allow the child to become aware of self-experience, transition seamlessly to recognizing the social context of limitations and the needs of others, and transition seamlessly to negotiating a socially appropriate resolution that considers both the child’s inner experience but also the social context defined by others.

The principle of "people make us feel the way they feel" can be a helpful approach to developing guesses about the child's experience.  How do your child's actions make you feel?  Frustrated?  Helpless?  Not listened to?  Hurt?  (anger is hurt: “you hurt me so I hurt you”).  Your feelings may offer a window into your child’s feelings, because your child may be creating in you (and in others) the child’s own inner experience as a primitive way of achieving a “bond-of-understanding” with others.  The child is essentially communicating, “Now YOU know what I feel, because I’m making you feel it too.” 

When we provide the child with a “bond-of-understanding” experience through our Intent to Understand as part of Step 1, the child no longer needs to make us feel the way the child feels to achieve this relationship bond, and we help the child to develop a more sophisticated way of achieving this “bond-pf-understanding” experience through social communication rather than by simply inducing the feeling of frustration/anger/hurt etc. in us. 

A more productive way of achieving this “bond-of-understanding” is therefore to actively approach our children with an Intent to Understand their experience from their perspective (before we instruct them in the social context of rules-limitations-restrictions-and the needs of others), instead of responding FIRST with instructing the child regarding the limitations of the social context involving the rules, restrictions, and needs of others.  Instead, when we respond first with the limitations, restrictions, and needs of others our children will often resist in an effort to first achieve a bond-of-understanding (i.e., our understanding of their world, their experience, from their point of view.

While we always need to immediately stop aggression and respond to "meanness" ("Michael! Stop that!"), we should quickly move into an Intent to Understand ("What's going on?") and then return later (after 3 or 4 responses born from a simple curiosity to understand the child's experience from the child's point of view) to the social context of rules, limitations, restrictions, and wants-needs-desires of others ("Okay, so you're feeling xyz because abc took place.  <becoming stern> But you cannot do qrs!").

Finally, because children import our feelings and stresses into themselves, just “as-if” these feelings and stresses were the child’s own, it becomes very important that we work out our excessive stress, anger, sadness, and anxiety.  We need to find our calm-and-relaxed place of gently positive happiness.  If we can find and enter this brain state often, then our children can join with us in this brain state of relaxed happiness, which is very healing and supportive of successful social relationships and task performance.

Because mothers typically are the emotional-psychological core for the children, I typically recommend that father’s support their children’s healthy emotional, social, and psychological development by pouring love and support into the mother.  If mom is happy and relaxed, she will be psychologically available for connection with the children.  If mom is angry-hurt-stressed, then the children may break psychological connection with her and their behavior will become “problematic.”

If there is anger in the marital relationship, try to quickly translate the anger into hurt (you hurt me so I hurt you).  If your spouse is angry at you, ask what you did to hurt his or her feelings.  Anger typically involves criticism of the other (… so I hurt you).  Criticism provokes defensive counter-anger (i.e., an anger-hurt-anger-hurt-anger-hurt two person cycling).  Try to disrupt this exchange of hurt-anger-hurt-anger by focusing and discussing the hurt not the anger.  Provide nurturance for the hurt.  Heal the hurt with compassion, love and understanding.  Anger, as an emotion, is not meant to be used within the family or social group.  Try to limit anger, try to increase happy.

I hope this information may be of some help to you.  I'm afraid I can't offer much more at this time because of professional limits on my ability to comment on specifics using online media.

Good luck to you and your family in finding more positive and affectionate relationships.

Craig Childress, Psy.D.

Clinical Psychologist, PSY 18857