Welcome back to the Simplicity Podcast with me, Kim John Payne, so glad you're able to join us again. This week I wanted to talk about how to leave a situation that is escalating, that doesn't have a child, a tween, or a teen feel that they are being abandoned. It's the difference, the way I think about it, is it's the difference between walking away versus stepping away.
Walking away often kind of gives the feeling of, I'm done, I'm leaving you, I cannot cope with this, I'm walking away. It has a certain coldness to it when I think about it. Stepping away is all about saying to a child, you know, this is hard, I just think we all need to take a pause, or if it's a little child, we need to take some calm down time now and basically we need to stop because in our family we know nothing gets worked out when we're worked up.
I actually covered that in another podcast if you're interested in that. But this ability to be able to step away and be able to tell a child that you're not leaving them, you're not abandoning them, you're not rejecting them, you're not walking away out of frustration and anger as tempting as that could be sometimes. What you are doing is stepping away, or stepping back, or having calm down time.
Whatever way feels right to you to say it and feels authentic. It's very important that when things are escalating, that we model to our children that we know how to hit the pause button, we know how to pause, we know how to stop. Because that stopping of behaviour is something that we ask our children to do all the time.
We often say to them, would you please stop? That no, no, no more, please stop. Well, it's fair enough, but we have to be able to model that we do it ourselves and particularly that we can do it staying at least centred. This ability to stop, just to be able to pause and stop.
Imagine a world where every child was modelled that, you know, that it would be very hard for there to be war if we knew when things were escalating and we stopped, right? And it's almost like what is true on a global level is true on a cellular level, because when cells multiply and multiply and multiply and can't stop, that leads to illness, as we know. But it's also true in our family that we need to be able to stop. Otherwise, it leads to relational problems, even ruptures.
It doesn't lead to health, it leads to illness. So being able to establish that in our family, if we need space and we need to step away from a problem or we need to have calm, explain this to a child. And you might even want, and this is one more point here, you might even want, if this strikes a chord for you, to get out ahead of this a little bit.
And if things have been escalating in your family, be able to find a moment, a good moment, a right moment, when things are ordinary, that is going along nicely, or there is even a cozy, a good time you're having with a child, and say to them, you know, I've been thinking about yesterday or the day before, when things got really hot, didn't they? They got really escalated, it wasn't good, there was angry and hurt feelings. And what I want to tell you is that I want to make a change, love. When things are crossing the line and getting out of control, and there's anger, it doesn't mean that that's bad, but it does mean that I want to be able to have some calm down in those moments.
I want to be able to let you know that I'm stepping away from this situation. And even if you're still angry, I am going to not keep involved in that. I'll still be around, I won't leave the house, but what I will do is fold some laundry, or I'll be in the kitchen, but I'm disengaging with it.
The reason I'm doing that is that I love you so much, that I don't want to see you get more and more and more angry. So what I'm going to do from now on, whenever I can, is step away, give ourselves a pause, and then circle back to where we can then work it out when we're feeling better. But I want you to know that when I say I'm stepping away, I am disengaging, I am no longer willing to argue, and I'm no longer willing to have big angry conversations.
I'm going to go quiet. I'm going to do what I do in the kitchen, wherever it is, tidying up. And that doesn't mean I don't want to sort this out.
It actually means I do want to sort it out, because we can sort it out when we've just got a little more calm, or if you're speaking to a teenager, a little less adrenaline and cortisol in our system, a little less fight going on. So I am going to disengage whenever possible from now on. But I want you to know it's because I want this to have the best chance possible of working it out.
In that way, getting ahead of our kids and reminding them, with whatever language works, stepping away is one way of describing it, having some calm down time, stepping back, whatever language works for you. But there is a disengagement. You're disengaging in the conflict, but you're staying with your presence close to your child.
It's disengaging with the escalation. It's not leaving your child in a frustrated, angry way. Okay, I sure hope that's helpful.
Bye-bye for now.
