Welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Kim John Payne. This week I want to build a little more on what we spoke about in our last episode about walking away in anger as opposed to stepping back calmly. One of the things that I see being very triggering for all of us as parents is something that I think of as aggressive entrapment.
Now let me explain a little bit what I mean about that. It's when children start to get the message, unless we have an alternate way of dealing with this, that if they melt down they can be the absolute focus of our attention. Now often when children melt down, I've got to say, they're signalling to us that we're not a strong enough presence for them, that we've been distracted, we've done a ton of micro abandonments by checking our phone, checking our phone, checking our phone.
And so meltdowns are often caused by a child feeling that the only way to get our attention is to melt down. And then they have all of our attention. Now it's not good, it's not a good attention, it's often a frustrated, even shouting or whatever it is, but it is our attention.
So that's the first point that I want to make, is that if your child is having a lot of meltdowns, a lot of tantrums, just check it, do a bit of a check as to whether you need to be a stronger presence in their lives, whether there needs to be some more stuff you do together, whether there needs to be more stories, more baking together, more just hanging out together if they're older kids, whatever it is, run a check there. Now it may not be that, but a heck of a lot of time, it actually is. Okay, then, when your child is melting down, what are some of the things you can do? Based on the fact that I think a lot of kids do this tantrum, even big teenage tantrums, it has got to do with, yes, it's a frustration, but it's also a call for presence.
And when a child is melting down, we want to be present, but not entrapped and overly engaged in the meltdown. What I suggest when a child's melting down is to be a presence by leaning in a little bit to what we know goes on in particularly a young child's brain up until even the elementary school years, is lean into that mirror neuron activity. I've mentioned this before in a couple of podcasts.
When we do something that is very familiar to a child, then the neurons, these mirror neurons are involuntarily engaged, they fire. And even in a full-blown tantrum, if we start like sitting near a child and start folding the clothes, and we can say to a child, it's very hard to be so angry. Sure, you're not ignoring them, not speaking to them, but it's not getting involved.
Presence is not involvement. And if we can fold the clothes, and they've seen us do that so many times. One mom I know, she, when a child woke up very, very grumpy and was having, or really bad and she could feel it building, she used to go and get clothes to fold.
And I said to her, oh, you really have that much laundry? And she said, not always, but sometimes I just put things into a laundry basket to come down and fold near my child. It works every time. I thought that was kind of funny, but kind of great.
Other things we can do is just tidy up a little bit. Just walk, there's always stuff to tidy up. And just so the child is tantruming, right in the kitchen, right at your feet, breathing.
Kids do a good job at breathing on the floor. Just stay out their way, let them know it's hard. And then maybe just wipe down the counters.
Tidy up the shelves. If it's in the lounge room, just tidy up the cushions. They've seen you tidy up like this so many times.
So absolutely bring your presence, but not your attention and not your engagement. Know that when you are able to stay relatively centered in this way, and by the way, us folding the clothes, and it's exactly what this mom said, when I fold the clothes, it gives me something to focus on and I don't get triggered by my child. Well, yeah, because that within us is also very settling.
So try to avoid this aggressive entrapment, sending a message to a child that if they melt down, they get tons and tons of attention. I think what they're looking for is presence, and we can give them our presence without having to be overly engaged. Okay, I hope, as always, that's helpful.
Bye bye for now.
