Kids, Parents, and Power Struggles

by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka

  Kids go through growth spurts about every six months in the early years, and every year as they move toward adolescence. During this time the old systems fall apart before the new ones work. The process usually lasts about four to six weeks. It’s exhausting to everyone because the only thing you can really do is maintain your standards, nurture more, and wait it out. Growth spurts disappear as suddenly as they appear. One day you realize that your child has achieved a whole new level of skills. The monster is gone, replaced by a very enjoyable kid.

  Letting Go of “Lovies”

  Kids reach a certain age and adults decide it’s time for them to be finished with bottles, pacifiers, nursing, and even favorite blankets. The key to letting go of “lovies” is to work with your child to help him find another way to soothe and calm himself. Without a substitute, he’s left without his favorite soother, and the stress levels can rise quickly. So when you wean your child, don’t stop holding and rocking him. If you take away the pacifier, offer him oral alternatives like a straw with his drink. If you toilet train him, cuddle him after he uses the potty and tickle his toes at bathtime. When your child is too big to be held on your lap, sit on the edge of her bed and scratch her back.

  Invasive Medical Practices

  Doctors are sworn to help their patients, but sometimes the tools and techniques they use are frightening and painful. For a young child, being held down and hurt by a trusted adult—even if it’s to save her life—can be a traumatic experience. Be aware that if your child has experienced major medical interventions she may be stressed and need more support from you.

  Visitations

  Leaving one parent to return to another is a very challenging experience for kids. The rules change from one house to another, and separation means letting go. It’s important to recognize that when your child returns from a visit, if she’s acting out, beneath her anger may be stress.

  Bullies

  Bullies are a major source of stress for kids. While it is common to tell kids to stand up for themselves or to ignore the bullying, the latest research on bullies demonstrates that adults must step in! It’s adults who must clearly enforce the standards that everyone will be treated respectfully and that bullying will not be tolerated. A child alone cannot stop a bully.

  Young Siblings Starting to Walk and Talk

  Your child may have been infatuated with her sibling when he was a baby, but once that baby starts to move and talk, it’s another story. Suddenly the older child finds her space invaded. It can be a very frustrating and irritating experience. Tempers may flare.

  Once again, my list is not comprehensive, but I hope it gives you the idea that kids, even infants and toddlers, experience stress. You may also realize that many of the events that stress kids also stress you, leaving all of you more vulnerable. Each event taken alone may be manageable, but stacked together (the vacation and the birthday party), they may overwhelm all of you. When you recognize events that are potentially stressful to your kids and to you, you can take a proactive approach.

  Check the stress levels in your home. What has your child been doing and saying lately? Are you seeing stress behaviors? What about you? If people are stomping and screaming at your house, take note. The behavior isn’t about purposefully being mean and nasty. This is not the time to mete out punishments or to pull apart. It’s time to hunker down and address the real emotions that are fueling those behaviors—emotions like fear, sadness, worry, disappointment, grogginess, and that general feeling of being overwhelmed.

  While recognizing your child’s stress is a very important step, you won’t want to stop here. In order to stay out of the power struggles, you need to know what strategies will keep your child working with you.

  Enforcing the Standards

  It’s difficult to feel sympathetic toward a kid who has just smacked you in the face and called you stupid. That’s why your first response in any situation is to enforce your standards clearly. No matter how stressed your child is, he still cannot strike out at you, call you names, rudely order you around, constantly talk like a baby, or forget his homework every day.

  Remember as you enforce your standards that if you don’t want your child to be slamming doors and calling people names, you can’t either. He’s watching you!

  And because those hormones are pumping through his brain, you also can’t just tell him to stop. You have to go to the next step and help him understand what he needs and teach him what he can do and say. Fortunately there are ways to get your needs met as you meet his. When you and your kids are stressed, here are three things to remember:

  Nurture more.

  Create stabilty and predictability where you can.

  Create rituals that connect you.

  1. Recognize the Need to Be Nurtured

  When Kate is stressed, she can actually feel the rush of hormones surging through her body. It jolts her from her sleep. Instantly she’s on alert, wide awake and tense. When her husband senses her wakefulness, he reaches over, slips an arm across her, and pulls her into him, her back pressed against his chest. The comfort of being tucked there is immediate. Her heartbeat slows. She knows she’s not alone, and she falls back to sleep.

  Kate’s husband is already taken—we can’t have him, but we can acknowledge that when we’re stressed we need more nurturing, and so do our kids. Stress disrupts our basic sense of security, and your child needs you to help her feel secure, just like you did when she was a baby. And she needs you to do it proactively.

  Proactively means recognizing the stress behaviors and the situations that cause stress for your family and consciously making the decision to slow things down and nurture more. It may seem difficult to do when you’re stressed, too, but we can all learn from Kate’s husband that it’s the small gesture that can really make a difference. Little things such as asking your child if he’d like help, or offering to carry him before he asks you to. It’s essential that you offer support before your child asks for it because by doing so you allow him to make the decision: “Yes, I need support right now,” or “No, I can do this on my own.” He feels empowered and secure.

  As you work with your child take the time to savor his presence. Revel in the memories of your child’s infancy. Sing the lullabies you used to sing. If he’s having difficulty separating from you, tell him before you leave a room that you are going and ask if he’d like to come with you. Absorb the joy he finds in being with you. These small, thoughtful actions and words will communicate loudly and clearly to your child, “I am here. I am available. You can trust me that I will not abandon you in your distress.”

  As you provide the support your child needs, let him know that soon he’ll be able to do these things on his own. Your reassurance will give him hope and remind you that you are not fostering dependence. You are supporting him while he needs it.

  Since you will not always know when your child is feeling stressed, it’s also important that you teach your child to respectfully ask for what she needs with phrases such as “Please hold me”; “I’m feeling overwhelmed, will you help me?”; “Please sing to me”; “I need help relaxing, would you rub my back?”; or “I just need you to be close.” Be a role model. Ask the other adults in your life for what you need, too.

  Confirm His Feelings

  “Mommy, are you sad?” “Daddy, are you mad?” Kids ask the honest questions, and we’re not quite sure how to answer them. We don’t want to burden them with our problems. We are the adults, after all. But it’s also important to be honest with your kids. When your child senses that you are upset but you deny it, he learns that he can’t trust his gut. Better to confirm his perception by saying something like, “You’re right. I am upset. Some things are happening at work. But you don’t need to worry about it. Mommy and Daddy will take care of it.”

  Your honesty allows your child to confirm his perception. He feels more confident because he can trust his gut. At the same time you’re not laying the responsibility on him, and that’s
an important point.

  Help Him Name His Feelings

  Danny was afraid of dogs, but his teacher didn’t know this until she brought her docile Labrador to class. “I hate dogs!” Danny shouted. “I won’t come to circle. You can’t make me!” If his teacher hadn’t been so observant, she would have heard only his words and may have thought he was being oppositional and defiant, but she had seen the quick flicker of fear in his eyes. Instead of immediately reprimanding him, she said softly, “This is a big dog. I’m wondering if he makes you feel uncomfortable.” “I hate dogs!” Danny retorted. “It’s all right for you to stay back and watch for a while,” she told him, recognizing that he was probably frightened and an introvert who needed time to process that emotion as well as a thinker who didn’t want to admit his vulnerability. She didn’t tell him that he was afraid; instead, knowing that Danny was listening, she proceeded to tell the other children how she had gotten her pet as a puppy and how afraid she had once been of dogs. Then she showed the kids how to pet the dog and invited those who wanted to, to touch him. Danny watched. Tentatively he moved closer but still did not come into the circle. His teacher smiled at him and turned her attention back to the other children. When all but Danny had petted the dog, she sent them on to play and then invited Danny to bring the dog’s leash to her. He did, then reached down and quickly touched the dog’s back. “It’s all right to be cautious,” his teacher said. “He’s a big dog. Some people may be frightened by him.” Danny simply listened. Later she asked him, “Do you think you were afraid?”

  Coaching your child doesn’t mean telling him how he feels. You’re merely giving him information, asking questions, and offering examples so that he can decide himself. When it’s stress behaviors you’re seeing, remember the emotions are very likely to be fear, worry, exhaustion, sadness, indecisiveness, hurt, or disappointment. Because stress triggers the fight-or-flight response, it’s likely that the most obvious emotion is anger, but anger is a secondary feeling. Something else like fear or worry often precedes it.

  Create an Allotment of Mental-Health Days

  Bill found his son, Michael, slumped in the chair, tears trickling down his cheeks. This was not his usual cheery, self-sufficient, independent kid. “I was so suprised at first,” he said, “I couldn’t believe the wet streaks on his cheeks were actually tears. But they were. I sat down next to him. ‘What’s up?’ I asked.

  “‘I’m just so tired,’ he groaned. I nodded, remembering the trip to visit grandparents in another town, two baseball games, early risings to finish homework. There was good reason for fatigue.

  “‘Do you need to sleep longer?’ I asked him. He nodded. ‘Can I have a mental-health day, Dad?’ he asked, knowing that every year we allow our kids two days on which they can say, ‘I just need to stop and rest.’ I reminded him that he’d have just one more mental-health day left.

  “‘I know,’ he said, ‘but I really need it.’ I agreed, reminding him that when he awoke there was to be no watching television. He was to catch up on his homework. He agreed and fell back to sleep.

  “He awoke at noon, hauled himself out of bed, and started reading. A shower and lunch were his only other activities. When I came home, it was as though a new person had come to reside there. This one was rested and pleased with himself that his homework was done. The next day he was up and out as usual, no complaints and no stalling. One day was all he needed to recuperate.”

  You might be thinking, If I allowed my child mental-health days, he’d want one every week. My experience working with families is that kids don’t abuse them. They hoard them.

  2. Create Stability and Predictability Where You Can: Routines Matter

  Often when we’re stressed, it’s because things are happening that are beyond our control. Surprises become the “norm.” The demands overwhelm us and the predictability and regularity of our day goes by the wayside. Meals go unplanned, car-pool plans collapse; bedtimes are thrown into chaos. When predictability disappears, kids go on alert, ready for fight or flight, and so do you.

  Even on your most stressful days take a few minutes at night or in the morning to think through your day. This will really help. Where will your child be going? Who will be picking him up? Will your partner be home tonight? Will you be there in the morning when your child wakes up? Will your child get the downtime in the morning that he’s used to, or do you have an early meeting so you will be dropping him off early as well? Are you going home right away after picking up your child or running errands? Talk through the plans with your child and your partner. Predictability doesn’t mean inflexibility. Alter plans as needed, but remember that the more you and your child know what to expect, the less energy you have to expend being alert.

  Ultimately you can teach your child to ask, “What are the plans for the day?” As he grows older he can also create plans for himself. This predictability gives him some control, eases distress, and lessens his need to control something else!

  3. Create Rituals That Connect

  The average American parent spends twenty-two minutes a day interacting with his or her child. When we’re stressed, the odds are that we spend even less time. William Doherty, author of The Intentional Family, says, “In today’s stress-filled world we have to intentionally plan family rituals that bring us together.”

  Terry was a single parent who worked full-time. She didn’t have a lot of extra time for “nurturing and connecting” with her child. Mornings with her two-year-old daughter Tamara were a nightmare. Initially Terry would get herself up, shower, dress, and then wake Tamara. She’d change Tamara’s diaper, dress her, and give her a quick snack. Within fifteen minutes they’d be out the door heading for child care. But Tamara hated it and screamed in protest every morning. She wanted to play. She wanted to be with her mother. By the time they separated at child care, both of them were in tears. It was a lousy way to start the day.

  In class Terry recognized that her daughter’s difficulty separating was a stress behavior very typical for her age. She realized her daughter needed more connection time with her, but she couldn’t figure out how to fit it in.

  David, another parent in class, suggested that she just try to make the normal routine special. He explained, “When Gayle and I were expecting our first child, we were talking with my brother and his wife. Gayle was going to nurse and take a six-month leave from her job. I was going to be working more overtime to make up the difference. My sister-in-law said to me, ‘Oh, David, then you’ll have to make bathtime your time with the baby.’ I have to admit I found her advice more intimidating than inviting. I had never taken care of a baby, much less bathed one. So when my son was born, I approached this task very tentatively. And it wasn’t easy. My son’s a very sensitive kid. He didn’t like being undressed for his bath. The water had to be just the right temperature, and washing his hair was a major feat. But I kept working on it. By the time he was a year old he trusted me. He’d hold his little washcloth over his eyes while I washed his hair, and we’d splash together. I’ll always be grateful to my sister-in-law. The connection was worth it, and because bathtime is Daddy’s job, we make that connection even during the busiest times.”

  Terry took David’s advice. Instead of waking Tamara at the last minute, she woke her earlier and plopped her into the bathtub with her yellow duck. Tamara had always loved her bath. It soothed and calmed her. While Terry did her hair and makeup, Tamara played and chatted with her mom. When Terry was finished, she dried off Tamara with a fuzzy towel, dressed her, and ate a quick breakfast with her. Forty-five minutes after waking, Tamara would exclaim in delight, “Let’s go see my teacher!” Terry hadn’t done anything that she wouldn’t do during a normal day—she’d just done it differently. The connection of bathtime in the morning brought them together, eased the stress of separation, and allowed them to start their day with smiles instead of screams.

  When you’re stressed, your family needs those connections more than ever. When it’s time to
make dinner, try to work together. Put the preschoolers up to the sink and let them scrub fresh vegetables or wash the pots and pans. They’ll love it. Older kids can mix up the muffins, set the table, dim the lights, and light the candles. There’s nothing like candlelight to settle things down.

  Look around you. What needs to be done? How can you do it together? That’s the key—be together. If the laundry has to be folded, why not dump it in your child’s room and sit and fold it while he falls asleep. You’ll get the laundry done, and he’ll get the connection that he needs so he won’t have to cling. Need to pay the bills? Give your child all the junk mail to open up and play office with while you’re working. If your child is older, invite him to bring his homework to the dining room table so you can sit together as you both work. Push the fears and hassles of the day into the back corners. Don’t let those forces pull your family apart. Consciously create rituals that bring you together in good times and in bad.

  Adjust for Individual Differences

  How we cope with stress varies with our temperament and our type. The introverts in your family are going to need more space and quiet time. The extroverts are going to want to talk things out. Recognize your differences. For the introverts, eliminate as many outside commitments as you can. Extroverts, give yourself permission to use the phone and talk with others. Be careful not to wear out your introverted family members.

  And if you or your child are temperamentally more intense, know that daily exercise will be even more important to you. If you’re more sensitive, sensorial stimulation, especially noise, will make you edgier. And if you’re slow to adapt, know, too, that transitions become more challenging. Slow down, allow more time, and you’ll ease through this challenging period.

  Allow Time

  Learning to deal with life’s ups and downs isn’t easy and takes time. If your child is dealing with a significant issue, there won’t be a quick fix. It may be a tough six months or year before you see progress, and you may need to seek professional help in the process. And because kids are developing, they often have to revisit a major stressful event at each new developmental milestone. That means that if your child was six when you divorced, when she reaches preadolescence, she may very well have to process her feelings about it all over again at a higher level of thinking.