Kids, Parents, and Power Struggles

by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka

  Emotions are the real fuel source behind power struggles. When you identify those emotions you can select strategies that teach your kids what they are feeling and how to express those emotions more respectfully and suitably. The pot doesn’t keep boiling over because ultimately the kids themselves learn to recognize the heat and turn it down! That was true of Kyla.

  Whenever she was bored, ten-year-old Kyla would ask her mother Anne what she could do, but every suggestion made was rejected. No, she didn’t want to call a friend. No, she didn’t want to bake or read a book. And she was not the least bit interested in playing a game with her mother. Exasperated, her mother would ask, “Then what do you want to do?” But Kyla would only snap at her and complain about the “stupid” suggestions. Pushed to the boiling point, her mother would finally send Kyla to her room, which resulted in a screaming fit and nasty retorts like, “You’re the meanest mother in the world!”

  But all that changed when Anne learned that Kyla wasn’t trying to frustrate her. There was a feeling and need that were fueling her behavior. It was a feeling that Kyla couldn’t label and didn’t know how to express respectfully; as a result she was irritable and disrespectful. But Anne could help Kyla to identify her emotions and choose more suitable ways to express them. Instead of offering suggestions, she chose to ask Kyla questions such as: Do you feel like doing something inside or outside? Do you want to be with people or alone? Do you want to do something active or quiet?

  By asking questions instead of offering suggestions, Anne taught Kyla how to figure out what she was feeling. When she understood her feelings, she could choose an activity that truly met her needs. Instead of frustrating each other and disconnecting, Anne and Kyla learned to work together.

  What I’ve discovered as I parent my own children and work with the families in my classes, workshops, and private consultations is that understanding and working with emotions can totally change relationships. You become aware of what you and your child need and what’s important to you. Kids who are emotionally smart are self-motivated, willing to cooperate, and able to get along with others—even their siblings. Instead of fighting with your child and disconnecting, working with emotions allows you to connect, creating the emotional bond that links you and fosters a relationship that’s alive, dynamic, ever-changing, exciting, and even fun!

  This style of discipline is called “emotion coaching,” and the latest research on human brain development tells us that enhancing your child’s emotional intelligence is more important to his success in life than is his IQ.

  It may surprise you. Initially I was wary, too. Emotions, after all, have not been given much credibility. Even though I have personally witnessed power struggles being diffused or diminished as parents addressed the sadness, disappointment, frustration, fear, determination, or other emotions that fueled them, I still worried that others might find this a “fad” in parent education, a new form of pop psychology. Certainly our parents and grandparents never spent much time thinking about emotions and may even have felt that to address emotions was to coddle a child or just “stir him up.” And then Daniel Goleman wrote Emotional Intelligence and everything changed. His work provided the tested research that matched my experience and intuition. Emotions do indeed make a great deal of difference.

  The Research

  The most recent research in psychobiology and neuroscience has demonstrated that children are born with billions of brain cells, probably all they’ll ever need in their lifetime. However, the way in which that brain gets wired and which brain cells get used depends on you and your child’s environment.

  At birth a child is primarily working from his limbic system—the primitive, reactive brain. He experiences an emotion and acts. But as you help your child to understand what he’s feeling, enforce limits, and teach him how he can express those feelings respectfully, he starts to build linkages to the neocortex, or thinking brain. The more plentiful the linkages, the stronger the wiring, and the easier for your child to stop impulsive behavior. Ultimately your child is able to identify what he’s feeling, shift out of a reactive response, and think of a more appropriate one and use it!

  Why Power Struggles Stop When You Teach Your Child About Emotions

  When you take the time to help your child understand his emotions, label them, and learn respectful ways of expressing them, you enhance his emotional intelligence. He doesn’t have to fight with you! He knows how to get along with you and everyone else in his world. The research by Peter Salovey a Yale psychologist, shows that emotionally intelligent kids:

  1. Understand their emotions. They are able to recognize a feeling as it happens. This is the keystone of emotional intelligence. It is this awareness that allows your child to understand himself. He isn’t a victim of his emotions, blindsided by strong feelings such as frustration or jealousy. Instead he can “catch” his emotions when they are easier to manage and use those emotions as a guide to help him understand what he needs. When his brother pesters him, instead of immediately getting furious and lashing out, which only gets him into trouble, he can recognize the entire spectrum of emotions in between—like irritation, annoyance, and frustration—as they happen. Recognizing emotions when they’re “little” makes it much easier to manage them and choose a more effective and suitable response.

  2. Stop themselves and manage intensity. Emotionally intelligent kids can stop themselves. They don’t spend their days rolling from one outburst to another. Instead of hitting, biting, swearing, and throwing things, they are able to enforce standards for themselves. They can recognize their rising intensity and take steps to soothe and calm themselves by doing things like taking a break, breathing deeply, or going for a run. Temper tantrums become an unusual occurrence rather than a daily event.

  3. Identify their triggers. There is a genetic aspect to our personalities that affects whether we prefer to solve problems by talking or thinking about them. It also governs whether we like surprises or find them stressful, whether we find parties, movie theaters, or shopping centers fun or irritating, and if we take no for an answer or keep coming back despite the obstacles in our path.

  Emotionally intelligent kids possess this self-awareness, and so are able to predict their triggers, avoid or minimize them, and learn effective coping skills. The child who can’t leave a friend’s house without getting upset learns to understand how difficult transitions are for her and how to make a plan to ease the distress. The child who screams at a friend, “Go home, I hate you,” or shoves and pushes other children learns to say, “Let’s watch a video for a while” or “I’d like to do this by myself right now,” recognizing that he’s an individual who needs space and quiet and may be exhausted by being in a group. The child who becomes emotionally distraught over seemingly “little” things learns to say, “I just need to feel sad for a while,” instead of insisting that his life is ruined. And the silent resister learns to say, “I need to think about that for a while” or “I’m not ready to talk yet,” rather than covering his ears, turning away, and refusing to talk.

  4. Are able to cope with life’s ups and downs. Kids never tell us they’re stressed. Instead they revert to younger behaviors such as refusing to dress themselves, whining, or waking up in the night. Four-year-olds tend to have toileting accidents and fear things in their closets, while twelve-year-olds may become lethargic or oppositional. By learning to recognize stress cues, the emotionally intelligent child is able to identify his fears and anxieties and make adjustments for them. He doesn’t have to act out because he knows what he can do to make things better. It is this sense of personal power that helps him to be more resilient as he faces life’s challenges.

  5. Recognize the emotions of others and work well with them. Emotionally intelligent kids know the important differences between statements like “You’re not my boss!” and “Can we talk about this?” They are able to assert themselves without being aggressive. They know when and how to negotiate, allowing them to work wi
th others rather than against them.

  6. Motivate themselves. Emotionally intelligent kids get their homework done, practice the piano, and get themselves organized—even when you’re not there! Because they understand their emotions, they know how to use their “peak” times to work, manage their frustration, get help when they need it, and prioritize their time and tasks.

  7. Maintain healthy relationships. Daniel Goleman says, “Emotionally intelligent people are social stars.” Emotionally smart kids have what it takes to get along with you and with others. As a result they’re successful in love relationships and in their careers. Most important, the bond with you remains strong—even during adolescence.

  The Importance of Every Day

  How can your children learn these skills? These abilities can be taught to children and the opportunities to teach them arise every day. Kids learn today the skills they’ll need for tomorrow. The abilities to calm oneself, to be assertive rather than aggressive, to solve problems, and to be trustworthy don’t suddenly appear at age eighteen. These are skills that take time and repetition to learn. The lessons begin today as you deal with bedtime, homework, curfews, and all the other power struggles in a normal day. As you teach those lessons, you become your child’s emotion coach, her self-discipline guide.

  It isn’t easy to think about power struggles as an opportunity to teach your child skills she’ll need for a lifetime, especially on the days when it seems as though she’s woken up thinking, I’m really going to drive my parents crazy today! But by going under the surface of power struggles, you can help your child identify the feelings or needs that are fueling the behavior and teach her suitable responses. In Magic Trees of the Mind, author Marian Diamond writes, “Our experiences with parents, siblings and caregivers—loving or harsh, supportive or destructive—help to establish a mental map that will guide our emotional life and in turn its influence on all of our thinking processes.”

  And if that’s not enough, John Gottman, author of The Heart of Parenting, says, “Emotion coaching is like an immunization.” According to the research, emotion coaching enhances your child’s physical health and academic development. It protects him from youth violence, antisocial behavior, drug addiction, premature sexual activity, and adolescent suicide. Emotion coaching also lowers your child’s stress level and resting heart rate, and reduces the number of colds and bouts with the flu he will experience!

  Your parents didn’t have this information, but you do. You can use it to help your child manage his strong feelings, build that bond with you, and get you out of those power struggles.

  How It Works

  Kathy is one of the thousands of parents I work with each year in classes, workshops, and personal consultations. She’d never heard of emotion coaching until she started attending my class called “Kids, Parents, and Power Struggles.” Even after the initial weeks of class, the ideas still seemed foreign to her, until she put them to the test and found they worked.

  It was supposed to be a fun outing to the zoo. A friend and her family had been visiting Kathy and her sons, four-year-old Nathan and two-year-old Todd. Over three days they’d visited the Children’s Museum, Camp Snoopy at the Mall of America, and the Conservatory. Friday was reserved for a trip to the Minnesota Zoological Gardens. But when it came time to go, Nathan refused. “Fine,” Kathy responded. “We don’t have to go. I can stay home with you and the others can go.” Five minutes after they left, Nathan changed his mind. He wanted to go, so off they went to meet their friends at the zoo.

  Unfortunately, Nathan’s contrary behavior continued at the zoo. Initially he didn’t want to ride the monorail, then he did. He didn’t want to visit the snow monkeys, but a few minutes later he did. Each time he said no, his mother would stop and cajole him and he’d move along. Finally exhausted by her efforts she decided they’d had enough. “We’re going home,” she announced unexpectedly. Turning to her friend she said, “Stay as long as you like; we’ll meet you back at the house.” The friend, with her kids in tow, strolled away.

  Nathan’s shriek in protest was death defying and ear piercing. The momentum of it dropped him to the floor. “I want to see the frogs!” he wailed.

  In an attempt to quiet him, Kathy promised, “Next time we come to the zoo, we’ll go straight to the frogs.”

  “No,” Nathan wailed, his screams exponentially increasing in volume.

  Sensing all eyes on her and judgment in them, she picked him up to carry him out. But it was impossible to carry a flailing four-year-old and push a toddler in a stroller. She set Nathan down on the floor again. Her own intensity now surging, she threatened to leave him and started walking away. He jumped up, lunging after her, shrieking louder. “I want to see the frogs!”

  She stopped. I was just in class, she reminded herself. What did I learn? Think about the emotions! Go under the surface. What is he feeling? What does he need? Taking a deep breath, she calmed herself enough to guide Nathan confidently out of the traffic in the hallway to a more private spot where she sat down on the floor with him. He seemed to sense the difference in her touch and allowed her to hold him on her lap. “It’s so sad when you don’t get to do what you wanted to do. It’s so frustrating when you have to leave before you are done,” she soothed.

  The shrieks died down, replaced by deep, slow sobs. “You really wanted to see those frogs,” she continued. Nathan sniffled, nodding his head yes.

  Feeling his body relax against hers, she stroked his brow and suggested, “On the way out, why don’t we stop in the gift shop. We won’t buy anything but we’ll look at the timers you love.” Brushing the tears from his cheeks, he stood up, took her hand, and walked out.

  Later that night, when she put Nathan to bed, they talked about their outing. Both of them were calm now, and she knew he could hear her. This was a teachable moment. “I think you wanted to be with our friends and go to the zoo, but you were too tired. When you’re tired, it’s difficult to make decisions. And then I surprised you when I said it was time to leave. You were disappointed. You wanted to see the frogs.” Nathan nodded and Kathy continued. “But it’s not okay to shriek at the zoo. You scare the animals and hurt other people’s ears. Next time you can tell me you want to go, but you are tired. Next time you can tell me you are sad, and I will listen. You don’t need to scream.”

  “It was incredible,” Kathy told me. “Initially when we were at the zoo and he started to scream, I felt sorry for me! That’s when I got angry. But all of a sudden I could hear his sadness. It wasn’t a demand. I could actually feel his disappointment and fatigue. I don’t ever remember feeling so connected before. I honestly think he was relieved when I gave him words for his feelings. He doesn’t like to ‘lose it.’ That level of intensity scares him. And I do think he listened to me when we talked at bedtime. I know he’ll try—he might not be successful—he’s only four—but he’ll try.” Her voice dropped as she finished her story. “It was so special,” she whispered, thrilled by the realization that she and her son had experienced a whole new world, a world of emotions where the willingness to listen and cooperate spring from a deep sense of connection.

  It is that emotional bond that keeps your child working with you. Emotion coaching doesn’t imply that you always say yes. Kathy still took Nathan home. It doesn’t mean you constantly negotiate. She didn’t buy him anything at the gift shop. It doesn’t mean that you give him free reign on his emotions. You don’t. Emotions are never an excuse for hurtful or disrespectful behavior. It means that you will listen, trying your best to understand your child’s point of view, label his emotions for him, enforce clear standards for behavior, and teach him what he can do to express them respectfully. As a result, your child will learn that he can trust you and be open to your guidance, leading ultimately to his own sense of self-control.

  You’re Not Alone

  Sometimes as an emotion coach you can feel alone. Cab drivers, fellow grocery shoppers, and grandparents may look at you funny when y
ou’re explaining to a six-year-old that she’s frightened or disappointed. You can wonder if you’re really doing the right thing. It’s important to remember that most people have never had the experience of going below the surface of a power struggle. They’ve focused on the surface like the fisherman in a boat who has no idea that beneath him lies the fascinating world of the coral reef.

  So in case you’re missing role models, or feeling lonely, the thousands of parents in my classes and workshops have agreed to share with you the trials, tribulations, and, most important, the successes of their journeys as emotion coaches. Included are strategies that have proven to be helpful in real life situations and supported by the most recent research. As you go along, there’re a few things I’d like you to remember.

  1. Power struggles aren’t just about winning or losing. They provide rich opportunities for learning how to deal with strong emotions and solve problems together. You are not a failure when you find yourself in a tug of war. You are a parent with an opportunity to learn what’s important to you and to your child.

  2. There are patterns that can help you identify your child’s emotions. If attempting to figure out what your child might be feeling seems a daunting task, know that there are patterns of behavior that can help you to identify the feelings. In this book I’ll show you how you can use information about temperament, stress, development, and medical issues to identify the real culprits behind your power struggles.

  3. By changing your reaction you can change your child’s. Even in the darkest moments when you feel totally inept and out of control, you have the power to stop and change your behavior. It is possible to learn how to keep your cool even when your child is losing his.

  4. Emotions can be your guide. Identifying your emotions allows you to recognize when your boundaries are being invaded and it’s time to hold the line. Understanding emotions helps you to identify the real fuel source behind the fires of misbehavior and to teach your child amore suitable response. When you can trust your gut, your confidence grows.